SMILE » n. longbottom

xlviii

"FOR THE DARK LORD"

An owl had arrived at the Wallace Mansion, with a paper of parchment. Both Aronn and Maurice Wallace had woken up to the screeches of the Peregrine Falcons from the tower that stood far above the rooftops of the mansion, as the falcons had became alerted when an unknown owl had arrived at the tower, lurking on the windowsill of the room with wide eyes full of nothingness.

Maurice Wallace had held onto a couple of mice by their tails expecting order in the tower to be in chaos, but alas: it had not been. The falcons were staring at the owl with frightened eyes even as their beloved owner opened the creaky door to the room, their feathers straightened up as much as possible. The owl only stared back, motionless from the windowsill: or until Maurice Wallace had arrived in the room.

The owl hopped off of the sill and onto a perch where it motioned to the parchment attached beneath its wings. When the woman had retrieved the paper, the owl took off through the window from which it came, through the night sky until the bird was a simple speck in the clouds. And then it had disappeared. Her Peregrine Falcons returned their attention to their owner: Maurice Wallace, when the owl was out of sight.

The mice had been useless to the lot of the falcons; as if the birds were curious as to what the other bird had been doing here in the high tower of the Wallace Mansion. Maurice Wallace noticed their worries and gave each of them a mouse in attempt to calm them down, but even she was still startled — so she looked down at the scroll of parchment that was once attached to the owl.

The woman noticed that there was no sigil on the seal for the scroll, and then she had realized that this what a matter she would have to discuss with her husband. In their bedroom was were Aronn Wallace waited. He had not known that her Peregrine Falcons' screeches could lead to something as this until his wife had walked into the room with a dreadful look about her face, clutching a scroll of parchment.

He urgently opened the scroll and these words seemed to have jumped up at him:

" Your daughter sided with the Boy-Who-Lived during class this morning. If her actions were to be disregarded then the state of your family would be at risk during times like these. "

Before or after there had been no signature nor identification of who had sent this to the Wallace Mansion. The man passed the scroll to his wife, who seemed to have tears streaming down her face as she read it. Aronn only sighed, getting up from his bed to the opposite side of the room where a bottle of wine had resided. He chugged it with no second thoughts. Maurice had fallen onto the floor where the parchment was crumpled up in her fist, "What could have she done?"

"Anything which would be enough punishment for the boy in her eyes," he mumbled, chugging the bottle once more. "Everything we do is for her and now it seems as though we cannot protect her."

"She can't do anything to our little girl, Aronn." She hissed through clenched teeth, she found her weight beneath her again and stumbled to get on a coat and slippers. "She's done this on her own accord!"

"Act rationally, Maurice. You cannot go barging into Hogwarts' doors like some maniac looking for Dolores, especially at hours like these. The press would go mad and every student in Hogwarts would be suspicious of our family. For Alana's sake, please, do not do whatever you are thinking of doing."

Maurice hugged the coat to herself and stared at the crumpled up scroll of parchment that laid on the stone floor. "I suppose you are right. But, we cannot protect her."

Her husband chugged the bottle once again before adding in another statement. "If that is the price to pay for life, then we have got to take what we can get. We'll find a way to protect her, Maurice, I promise." Aronn embraced his wife; whose face was warm from frustration, and salty and wet from the dried tears that streaked her cheeks. "But now everything we do —"

"— is for the Dark Lord," she had mumbled into her husband's shoulder. She understood the circumstances, but her daughter is her daughter; but since Alana has been given a punishment for siding with the boy: there is nothing else that they could do to protect her.