Chapter Twelve
Old Bitter Memories
New Years Eve had never been anything special for Adalyn. She never made any resolutions, or kissed anyone at midnight and drank champagne. Well, the year after her mother died…Christmas was very different.
Now, three years and a month since her mother had died, Adalyn felt she had never missed her more. For the New Years when Lucy had been alive, she would retreat into her room and emerge the next morning, her eyes red and puffy; what she did in there Adalyn never knew, or cared to find out. She suspected crying, lots and lots of crying.
Since that cold December when Lucy had passed, Adalyn had spent New Years Eve very similarly to her mother; alone. Though usually she spent it in a Muggle bar, drinking until she blacked out. Anything to suppress the memories, forget everything in her life that damned her the way it did. But this past year had been different; she’d spent it with Sirius and the Weasley’s, which had been elating-but this year was much, much different; she was still spending it with the Weasley’s, at the Burrow this time, but for the first time Adalyn was wishing she was about to kiss someone under the mistletoe at the strike of Midnight.
She was ten feet away from Harry Potter, and she wanted to be with him, yet anywhere else. ‘For the love of Merlin,’ she thought, sipping some champagne ‘stop being a lovesick girl; Harry Potter is not for you. He was never for you. The Golden Boy needs a Golden Girl, not a damaged nobody who spends her days wandering around and getting into trouble.’ Downing the last of her drink, she heard a nervous laugh behind her and turned her head slowly, eyes narrowing as she saw who it was.
“Nice of you to join me, Mr. Potter.” She said, tapping the bottom of her glass with her wand “I need someone to help me finish this off.”
“You shouldn’t drink you know,” Harry said, stepping closer “You’ll black out, or just have a really bad headache tomorrow.”
Raising her glass to him slightly, Adalyn winked at him, bold from the alcohol running through her system “Cheers to that.”
Harry knew she was hurting. He knew she saw the way Ginny acted around him, how he reacted to her actions-the pain in her eyes was barely masked by the spark from the spirits she’d been consuming all night, sipping champagne or firewhiskey as everyone else ate sweets, listened to Celestina Warbeck, played exploding snap and just enjoyed the last few days of Christmas Holidays. “Why don’t you come join the party? Fred and George just put on some more…appropriate music. They’re having a dance off.”
Shrugging, Adalyn turned her gaze upward to the sky, leaning against a wall of the burrow “That’s their tradition, this is mine.”
“What,” said Harry, a bit of anger leaking into his voice “getting drunk behind the house, blacking out and sleeping ‘till noon?”
“Yup,” Adalyn said, eyes closing as she breathed deeply, the icy air stinging her throat and lungs “My Mum did it for fifteen years, and now I will, too.”
“But your Mum was practically depressed!” cried Harry, balling his hands into fists “She was pining for Sirius, drowning her sorrows and broken heart-” stopping, Harry realized Adalyn had turned into her mother, drowning her sorrows on New years Eve, a time of celebration turned sinister. Lucy Quinn had practically died of a broken heart, and now her daughter was the same.
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The One That Got Away {Book One in The One Series}
Fanfiction' "I will not ask again, who are you?" Sirius Black took in the stranger on his doorstep, wand still out. "I," she said "Am Adalyn Black." "There is no such person." Said Sirius, his heart dropping. "Oh but there is, father." ' When Adalyn Black tur...
