MEMENTO MORI | DRACO MALFOY

ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Anger. Fear. Sadness. Joy. Guilt. Surprise. Love.

     Ophelia Rosier may have felt anger when she was a child; probably over some trivial thing such as not being allowed to stay up past her bed-time. She may have felt sadness once upon hearing of her father's untimely demise when she was only two years old. She may have felt joy when she was around her best friend and cousin Thomas. All of these emotions, all of these feelings that make a person unique, Ophelia was taught to suppress them— to bury them away in the depths of her mind whenever she felt them.

     "Emotions make you weak." Her mother would always say. She'd blink as she understood, and tucked that emotion away into little cabinets in her mind.

     Growing up, people believed Ophelia to be an incredibly strong child; growing up in the shadow of her father's heinous crimes, paying no mind to strangers on the street who'd whisper and stare as she'd pass by. She never understood why people treated her differently because of the choices he made. She was not her father, nor was she his crimes.

     Once thing Ophelia never could wrap her head around, however, was love. Love was a foreign concept that no matter how hard she tried, she could never understand it. It baffled her that some people could throw their entire lives away for another person. Ophelia's mother, Althea, always turning a cold shoulder, ensured her daughter would never make the same mistakes that she did. Ophelia learned this quickly at a young age after overhearing her cousin Thomas tell his mother that he loved her. She went home that night, not quite understanding the words her cousin spoke, but wanted to see what it meant.

     "I love you, mother."

     She said it plainly, nonchalantly, meaninglessly. However, Althea turned sharply on her heels and scolded her daughter fiercely.

     "Love is for the weak, Ophelia. The moment you open your heart to love, you open yourself to pain and suffering. You mustn't love me, Ophelia, because even I could hurt you one day."

     Ophelia did as she was told. She never loved her mother. She never loved anyone. She tucked any feelings she felt away, never to be seen again. She was cold, she was unperturbed, she was empty.

* * *

     Sitting on the edge of her bed, Ophelia stared down at an old photograph in her hands. The photograph was torn slightly around the edges, so Ophelia held it with care. Her eyes narrowed as she watched her familiar mother, though younger in age, laugh heartily with the man standing next to her who she'd come to know was her father. The couple appeared genuinely happy. In her mother's arms was Ophelia as a baby, dressed all in white with a silk bonnet sat atop her head. The once happy couple looked down at baby Ophelia with nothing but smiles and adoration on their faces. Ophelia couldn't help but wonder how different her life would have been if her father hadn't died. Would her mother have ended up so cold? Ophelia didn't know any other side of Althea, but she knew from the photograph that she hadn't always been that way.

     "Come now, Ophelia," Althea called from just outside her bedroom. "Come collect your things, Thomas will be here shortly to take you to the platform." She turned away just as quickly as she had arrived, and Ophelia heard her heels clicking all the way down the hallway until the sound disappeared entirely. Ophelia placed the worn photograph in one of her school textbooks and shut it loudly before throwing it into her packed trunk and latching it shut. Ophelia never questioned why her mother never accompanied her to the platform, she knew she wouldn't be nearly as miserable going off to school with her cousin than she would be having to say an awkward, un-heartfelt goodbye to Althea in front of a crowd of students and their loving parents.