freckles || {Sirius Black} #Wattys2018

Three | A Silent Yuletide

Rosemary stayed in her fetal position on the bed, trembling all over, as the nurses began to wake up and navigate the halls.

It was Christmas Day, and most of the inpatients in the wizarding hospital, despite their condition, had family surrounding them; celebrating the Yuletide, giving them presents, and caroling the popular holiday tunes. Nurses were smiling, joining in the fun, and everyone began to forget their burdens and be happy for it was such a joyous occasion.

However, when the staff entered the Peterson's room, all giddiness and excitement was wiped from their expressions. For the two young girls, it was not a simple, care-free holiday.

Rosemary never once spoke as the nurses approached her and checked her wounds. While the most damage had been done mentally to the girl, there had been some physical injuries. Deep nail marks were imprinted in the soft skin of her hands where she had dug them in while she was being tortured. A dark bruise had appeared where the man had slapped her countless times on her cheekbone, covering up the freckles. Her right hand was swollen, as when the man had kicked her wand away, the force had fractured a few bones. Thanks to the magical medicine of St. Mungo's, the wounds were on the mend, but they still hurt the poor girl. Miserably, she took a quick glance out of the window, where the sun was now high in the sky.

"Dear, have you been sick at all?" The nurse with brown hair asks Rosemary, pity for the two girls clear in her expression.

Rosemary nodded, avoiding looking the woman in the eyes. The woman puts a hand against Rosemary's forehead, and the young girl flinched at the physical contact before turning her head away. Tears began to fill in her eyes, but she forced them back, blinking hard.

The nurse retracted her hand in an instant, and backed up a few feet. "Miss Peterson, I-"

Rosemary shook her head and returned to watching the happenings outside of St. Mungo's, and the nurse had nothing left to do but leave.

It was a painfully silent holiday for Rosemary.

Her thoughts continuously rested on the fates that had become of her father, mother, Linnea, and Olive. The Petersons would have been opening gifts from each other at this moment if none of the events of the previous evening had occurred.

For the first time in her life, her inner-galaxies were not giving her plenty of ideas and fragments and memories to focus on. They had been shattered, so much so that Rosemary could only see each death in replay, over and over and over.

All that she was left to do was occasionally sob, tremble, and throw up.

It was as clear as if it had been written across the skies.

Rosemary was broken.

Ivy didn't know what to do as she lay, guilt-ridden, under the sheets in her hospital bed, pretending to be asleep.

Someway, somehow, she had not been strong enough to keep Olive safe. It is solely my fault that Olive is dead. Ivy thought, misery coursing through her body.

Ivy had always been one of the bravest members of the Peterson Household; time and time again, she snuck information home from Hogwarts for her parents to use for the Order of the Phoenix. Ivy did daring, reckless things, often ending up in detention. Despite this, she was also quite intelligent, and McGonagall wasn't sure exactly what to do with her.

But at this moment, Ivy didn't even have an ounce courage to face her sister, Rosemary. She couldn't even manage a simple I'm-sorry-I-let-go-of-Olive, a You're-not-alone-in-this or even an I-love-you.

One way Ivy and Rosemary were alike was that they were, in this moment, destroyed. The two were trying to keep it together for each other, because if either of them were to break out screaming and crying and letting all of the agony within them out, the opposite would do the same, and neither of them wanted the other to go through any pain. A silent understanding had somehow passed between the two; they were all they had left.

A difference between Ivy and Rosemary was that Rosemary had no way to manage the overall feeling of helplessness inside of her. But Ivy had a way to cope: drawing.

Ever since Ivy could hold a pencil, she had been illustrating magnificent images that were almost appeared as photographs; her gift was beautiful, and it never failed her.

And it didn't fail her that day, that Christmas Day of 1976. Ivy drew with agony and fire in her eyes, her cheeks red and her muscles tensed with concentration. There were darting swipes of the pencil and then long slides, and each one was done as if the pencil held vengeance in the lead, as if by letting out all of the trauma inside of Ivy onto the paper, everything would return to normal.

Ivy drew with fury, the faces of the the Death Eaters present in her mind. Ivy drew with despair, picturing her family laying on the ground, the life leaving their bodies. Ivy drew with hate and tragedy and love, a love so powerful that it could transcend death and be felt in the potency of the air. Ivy drew with miraculous suffering and painful pulchritude.

And Ivy didn't stop until she passed out from emotional exhaustion.