Dirty Mouth, Dirty Blood [h.g]

seven

7

Then:

Carina sat next to her brother, staring up at the mural in her father's study.

"Interesting, isn't it?" Her father's voice caused the young girl to let out a sharp gasp, and turn quickly to look at him. They weren't allowed in his study without him, and he had caught them red-handed. But instead of the blow she expected to receive, Lucius Malfoy sat down next to his children, and Draco eagerly scrambled up into their father's lap.

He always had wanted to please them, more so than Carina ever had. Draco begged for praise like a dog at the dinner table, and his addiction would, over time, ruin him.

Lucius pointed to the mural. "Look, there I am. And your mother next to me."

Now:

Burnt. That was the only thing Carina could wrap her mind around. The place where her name used to reside was reduced to a swipe of charred fabric. The mural in the study hadn't been touched since Sirius' name had, too, been burned. So the eliminating of her name had to have come from inside the Manor, seeing as the two murals were connected.

Carina wasn't sure how to feel about that.

In a way she had known that this would happen. Her father couldn't stand blood-traitors, and so of course she would have been removed from the tapestry.

While she wasn't proud of what her family had become, she could see from their point of view. If generations upon generations were taught something without really being challenged, of course they would believe it. She would have believed it too, had she not experienced Hogwarts in the way she had.

Carina could see where the Malfoys had gone wrong, but she did like having a name people knew, even if it was correlated with something bad. She hoped against hope that the Order would win the war, and then her family would see the error of their ways, accepting her once again into the Manor.

Now all she felt was emptiness.

The first sixteen years of her life, reduced to char on a wall in a house barely standing.

Carina sank slowly to the ground, eyes never leaving the Malfoy side of the Black family tree. She vaguely heard Sirius leaving her to her wallowing, and pulled her arms around her body in such a way that it looked like she was being restrained.

Carina sat like that for god knows how long, eyes pulling in and out of focus.

After a bit, Carina felt a person sit down next to her.

"Malfoy?" It was Hermione, and Carina exhaled in the relief that it wasn't a Weasley.

"Granger."

"What are you doing here?" Carina noticed true curiosity in her voice, and she angled her head slightly so she could see Hermione's doe eyes.

"I don't know."

"Then why haven't you left?" Hermione asked.

"I don't know."

Hermione huffed in annoyance, before turning to look at the burned part of the tapestry.

"Is- is that where your name used to be?"

"It's still there," Carina said indignantly, "you just can't see it. But it's there, it has to be there."

Hermione slowly reached out, and pulled Carina's arms away from her body. She had drawn blood on her bare shoulders, but Carina didn't notice the sting.

Hermione took Carina's hand in her own, examining the blood under the Slytherin's nails.

"Do you miss them? Your family?" Hermione asked warily.

"I'm not going to crawl back to them, if that's what you're asking. And I don't miss the lessons, the punishment that came along with them. But the idea of them? I miss it terribly."

"So what are you going to do now?" Hermione asked, lacing her fingers with Carina's.

"I don't know."

So the girls sat like that, hand in hand, until Carina stood up, hauling Hermione up with her.

"So, have you figured out what you want to do yet?" Hermione asked with a wary smile.

"I think I'm just going to go with the flow. Wait until we win the war, then pick up the pieces." Carina said with a shrug.

Hermione smiled then. "You think we'll win the war?"

"99% sure," Carina said nodding.

"And what's the other 1%?" Hermione asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.

"Pure, undiluted terror."