the fall of the damned - draco malfoy

two

In the past half an hour Persephone Sinclair's life has managed to shatter in front of her eyes, the comfort of familiarity and certainty pried from her unwilling hands. One of the things that the young girl took the most comfort in was gone, and now she was not quite sure what to do. All that was left of her was a vast emptiness.

Her hands tightened over the wood of one of the expensive dining room chairs as she stood staring out the window. The dark lord left no less than ten minutes ago yet it felt as if ten years had passed, it felt as if time ceased to exist around her as panic slithered its dark hands around her throat. Squeezing her neck tighter and tighter until her breaths were ragged and uneven.

She felt her mind start to slowly shift, and panic gnawed its way through her. Lord Voldemort was alive, he had returned, and he had not returned empty-handed. Of course, he would not, Persephone felt so stupid, had she truly believed that she would be able to escape him? No, that was quite impossible, her family had permanently damned themselves to that fate.

One decision made by her father's father had suppressed the entire Sinclair family to an endless amount of suffering. Their hands were tied to a sinister man, with no form of escape but death.

Her panicked eyes dart back over to the chair that the serpent had occupied and then to her mother's stiff back that faces her as she gazed out the window, Lilian had not spoken since the dark lord bid his farewell. After he left as if he had not just tied a noose around Persephone's neck.

As the girl gazes at her mother conflict settles within her, had she known? Did her mother set her up, knowing her she probably volunteered her over to the dark lord. Anything to aid his cause.

"Did you know?" The girl did not try to hide the animosity in her tone.

Lilian sighed at her daughter's question as she kept her gaze locked out the window. Specifically on one particular stone that sits securely in the gardens of the Sinclair Manor.

"No," she says sternly. "I did not know the dark lord planned to take my daughter to use as his whore."

Whore, that is what Persephone was to become. That is what the girl was, her own mother even thought it. Once she was of age she was to be shipped off to the dark lord, although he had not said for what exactly it was implied. The girl's life had been ruined because she had the unfortunate fate of the dark lord liking her looks.

The more she thinks about it the angrier Persephone became. Her manicured fingernails dug into the chair until she would surely leave an indent. "Really? I'm surprised." her voice shook with her words.

"I knew you hated me but I never expected you to willingly allow me to be shipped off as if I were some fine good."

Her mother turned to face the girl, looking into her eyes for the second time tonight. Her marine eyes smothered her, like a tsunami crashing down onto a forest, destroying everything it touched. "Do not be daft you stupid girl. I had no idea of this, and If I did what did you expect me to do, defy the lord? You and I both know he would kill me for denying him and then you."

Then her hard-edged voice took on a soft and foreign tone, and her eyes glazed over with something the girl had never seen in her mother before. Regret. "I do not hate you Persephone."

Something about the way her mother had spoken to her, the way her voice had been a caress over her skin made the girl crumple. For so long all she wanted was for her mother to accept her, and acknowledge her and it seemed the only way she could get such things was to be promised by one of the most evil beings to walk the planet. What was so wrong with the girl that her mother could not love her as is? Persephone wrapped her arms around herself before biting back a sob.

Her life was over, it was taken from her without her permission. Now, the girl could not advance on to be a part of the department for regulation and control of magical creatures and advocate for magical creatures and their preservation like she had dreamed of. No, she would be sent to Voldemort, because for a reason that the girl could not phantom he wanted her once she was seventeen. The second she graduates from Hogwarts her imprisonment would begin. She could not get married, nor have any children, she would never be able to live in the countryside in France, everything she wanted to do wanted to achieve was now gone.

Her life was not hers anymore, and that made the girl panic.

Her frame shook as she tried to hold back her sobs. The vast dining room seemed to shrink down until the walls suffocated her. It felt like every oxygen atom had suddenly vanished leaving nothing but carbon dioxide to poison her behind. She could not breathe, there was no air left in the world.

Her fingers reach for her throat willing it to suck in air, but her body was slowly beginning to shut down on her.

She was not in control, and her life was not her own. Tears streamed from her eyes and down her face, she tried to move her hands to wipe them but they were shaking far too much.

Suddenly her mother was at her side and had wrapped her arms around the girl's body, coaxing her down to the floor. Persephone silently sobbed as her mother made soothing noises rubbing small circles on her only child's back.

Guilt ate away at Lilian's heart, she knew she had been too cruel to the girl, but every time she looked at her she saw him. Everything about her was exactly like Adam, the good and the bad. She was smart and determined just as he would, but she always saw the way her own mind would betray her, just as her husbands had.

There were multiple occasions during her childhood when the small girl would sit at the dining room table and count every single window pane. If Lilian would break her train of thought to inquire what she was doing little Persephone would cry and cry. She always had to be careful around dangerous objects, for some time the girl would just act rashly and hurt herself, and she never knew why she did.

Lilian recognized that there was something wrong, that Adam's condition had been present in her young daughter so she sent house elves and healers to try to fix what was broken, and they did for the most part, but she would still notice the way her daughter would repeat little movements over and over. She noticed the way her eyes would glaze over and her breathing would speed up if something went wrong, if things did not go according to plan.

The mother could not explain the feelings she held towards her daughter, but she knew she loved her. Even if she did not show it, could not show it.

She placed Persephone's head in between her hands, smoothing down her raven locks. The girl had finally ceased her snobs and her chest fell into rhythmic breaths, although they were still slightly shallow.

"Look at me Persephone. You will be ok, I will find a solution to this. I swear it, I will not stand for my only daughter to be taken from me." she says.

Persephone nods and wipes away the last of her tears, and with that, her mother stands offering a girl a hand before turning away from her. By the way, her stand shifted back into its elegant position and the way she had looked away from the girl and towards the door instead, Persephone knew, she knew that her mother was gone and back in her place was Lilian Sinclair, the perfect socialite who pretended her daughter did not exist.

***

I promise that Draco will be coming soon, I know that is what everyone is waiting for, including me.