Pick Your Poison | Tom Riddle |

Chapter Twenty Eight: Princess In her Tower

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"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."
-- Henry David Thoreau

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June has been an unusually warm month, triggering the rain that battered down on her family's black Vauxhall. The car had rarely been touched since last September and the unpaved roads her driver rode on seemed a lot bumpier in the stiff car.

Eleanor sat in the back seat in her nice summer clothes, staring out at the thick gray clouds growing darker as the dusk hours came closer, the humid air seeping through the windows.

She missed home after all that's happened.

Percy was curled on her lap and her head rested along the cold window as her chin sat in her palm, her head quietly sifting through all of her thoughts. Beside her, like every other year, Abraxas Malfoy sat in the opposite seat staring out the window as well without a single world.

Back in September, Eleanor was oblivious to what this year would entail, let alone what she would find out about Abraxas.

He was a just as twisted as Tom and she knew that now, someone bent on the pride of blood purity.

But at the same time, she peeked in his mind only hours ago and his thoughts remained settled on not those things but his mother who he was coming home to. He hasn't heard anything from his family yet and he was conflicted on whether or not it was a bad thing.

Eleanor had genuinely hoped it was a good reason.

"Yesterday evening, the 150 mile stretch of the Normandy coastline in France currently occupied by Germany has now been stormed on by British, Canadian, and American forces--"

Static fizzled out the words of the radio reporter and Eleanor was eager to hear more. It was said to be a turning point for what would come next in the war when she heard of it yesterday. She couldn't believe how close it was to her home and it was all happening just across the water.

"Today with full confidence, P.M Churchill has made a statement saying the beaches have successfully been--"

Eleanor didn't have to listen anymore to already know that the invasion part was a success to her relief. She hoped by the time she came back for her seventh year, the radio would be celebrating the liberation of France instead of dwelling on the defeat of the Allies.

But after what she witnessed this year, she could acknowledge the fact that having nationalism didn't guarantee the war would be won by the good guys. There was a possibility the bad guys could undermine all of that and come out on top the same way Grindelwald has done over and over again.

For the remainder of her ride, Eleanor shut her eyes and dreamed of the day a great war would happen with Grindelwald.

One day, the good Wizards would storm upon him the same way the good soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy and in her dream, she pictured herself defeating Grindelwald once and for all.

But it was a silly dream. She was only seventeen and it would be impossible.

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The Parkinson Manor had taken up many acres, even more than the Malfoy's.

When they pulled through the black gated entrance, there was a stretch of a stone path between a neatly cut lawn lined with trees that stood tall and were trimmed to look thin. The black car pulled around the large marble fountain and Eleanor stepped out, breathing in the fresh air of dampness and a bit of a chill as she looked up at her home.

The sand colored walls stood high, stretching across the width of the lawn and holding many windows and parts of her black shingle roof came up in points and many different angles at the tops of each rise. Finally, her eyes drifted down the big red door under the small roof held up by columns and watched it open to reveal her family.