- 𝓢𝓮𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓮
𝓪𝓰𝓮 6
- The weather had started to warm up the earth, though Selene wouldn't have known any difference. She looked outside with a deep frown on her face, her hand holding her curtain back as she stood close enough to see her own reflection. That wasn't what she was paying any mind to. She could see her brother down in their lush backyard, balancing a ball on his head. It wasn't fair that she was stuck up in her room while her brother got to go out and play but she couldn't. It wasn't fair at all.
Selene stepped down from the storage box, sometimes seat as she moved over to her bed. She'd spent a lot of time up in her room because of something she couldn't control. It wasn't fair. It wasn't her fault that the boy had been mean to that girl. She hadn't even seen him. And just because the girl's tears ended up turning to a firework like sparkles as they slid down her cheek and people had started to freak out, her mom and dad grounded her.
It wasn't fair.
With arms crossed over her chest, Selene sat down on her bed, well more like fell down onto it. Every time her parents found something pretty happening that shouldn't happen (or so they said), they blamed her. Sure she'd thought about trying to make that girl happy again but she hadn't actually meant to do magic. It wasn't like she'd been taught to control it or anything; things just liked happening. In a fit of injustice, the young blond grabbed one of her pillows and threw it across the room. It slammed right into the far wall and hit the silver tree with her family's pictures. These pictures, of course, had a slight bit of movement to them; it was subtle but they did move to add that life like quality that all pictures in her house did. She didn't think anything of it - they'd just been gifts from her grandparents.
"Selene?"
Selene glared at the door as she sat on her bed. Her mom had come up to check on her. She didn't want to talk with her mom; they were punishing her for something she didn't mean to do.
"Selene?"
"No," the six year old called out just loud enough to be heard through the door.
Despite her outcry, Selen's mother (Cassandra) opened the door and walked in. She left it slightly ajar as to not try to make the moment feel imposing for the young girl. Selene glared down at the black skirt she had on as she sat very still on her bed.
"I just wanted to make sure you were alright."
"I'm not."
Cassandra almost seemed to crumble under the betrayed tone her daughter used. She moved over towards her and sat down at the foot of the bed.
"Your father and I sent you to your room for a reason you know."
"It's a stupid reason. I didn't mean to do it. And it's not fair that you got mad."
"Oh, honey, we're not mad at you," Cassandra said almost instantly, causing Selene to look up wearily. "We were just afraid."
"I didn't hurt anyone."
This time was kind of implied between the two of them.
"I know," Cassandra said as she brushed some of Selene's wayward blond hair back away from her face. "What you did was really beautiful. It's just that with how things are with the non-magic world...you can't do magic outside of this house."
"Grandma and grandpa do it all the time."
Cassandra seemed to visibly pause at that before she drew her hand back away from her daughter. Selene had a feeling that she was about to use that whole grown up line of 'it's different' or something like that. She heard a lot of kids get told that when they said something to older people. Usually followed by some type of mean promise like 'wait till we get home'.
"Not in front of people without magic. They would get in trouble for that too. And they're allowed to do magic because they've finished school."
"...you won't let me go to school."
It was a point of contention between her and her parents. She wanted to go to school with all the other kids in the neighborhood. She wanted to know what it was like to sit down at a desk and have someone up in the front of the room trying to explain something without leaning over her. She didn't know what it was like to be taught with a bunch of other kids. Normally it was just her and her brother with a tutor or a parent as they learned how to read, write, and do basic things like how to add or take away.
"You're not old enough yet that's why."
"I'm six. I'm old enough. Every other kid gets to go. Why can't I?"
"Not every kid can turn tears into sparkles."
Selene laid back on her bed in exasperation, though she might not have known what that word actually meant she certainly felt it. "I didn't mean to...well, not really. I just thought it would make her happy and then it kind of happened."
Cassandra stayed sitting up as she had a near bittersweet smile on her face. "I know, I know. We just need to try and find a way so that stuff doesn't happen alright? You have so much magic that trying to get you to stop will probably make our house blow up."
Her mother might have laughed but Selene didn't. If anything that only caused her to frown even more.
"You just need to learn that you can't go out and do that in public. Around here, sure, with your grandma and grandpa sure...you just can't do that out in the streets."
"Why not?" Selene grumbled to herself in an aggrivated tone.
"Because you can get in trouble by the people who are supposed to stop everyone from finding out that magic exists. In America that's MACUSA job. In Britain that's the Ministry of Magic's job. And if you keep doing things like sicking firework dragons on people or turning their tears into sparkly lights, then you can get in a lot of trouble. Which means your dad and I get in a lot of trouble too. Especially if you do this when you finally get to go to school."
"I want to go now."
Cassandra laughed and gently pushed at Selene's leg. Selene sat up and looked up towards her mom with searching eyes. She knew it would be a few more years before she could go to the magic school but that didn't mean she stopped wanting to go now.
"Come on, why don't you come help me squeeze some of the bubotuber. We have some people coming over for their cream soon and your dad refuses to use what we have right now. He says it's too old; it's not, he just keeps saying it."
"No."
Her mom had been the one to put her in her room, after all, while her dad tried to explain what had happened as a trick of light. Like a rainbow or something. She didn't want to go squeeze the pus out of a plant to help some dirty old teenagers feel better about themselves.
"What do you want to go do?"
Selene went silent for a moment as she stared at her wall, trying to think of something she wanted to do. Right now, she couldn't think of anything. And her mother rightly interpreted that as 'I don't know' as she stood up from the bed. With a bit of a ruffling to the mob of blond hair that spiraled down from Selene's head, Cassandra started back towards the girl's bedroom door. She'd let her sit in her own thoughts for a bit before trying again.
As her mother left, Selene went to go grab the pillow that she'd thrown at the wall earlier. As she picked it up Selene rubbed her hands along the fury edges. Her eyes looked at it in concentration, though in reality it wasn't the pillow that she was focusing on. She took a seat at the small desk that was in the corner and hugged the pillow close. Searching gray eyes moved from the creamy fur pillow to the wall with all her pictures. Her eyes trailed over the silvery branches and the small pictures of faces that sometimes blinked or tilted their head.
Everyone in her family was supposed to have been able to do the kinds of things she did. That's what being a pureblood meant, or so her father had explained not too long ago. Yet her mom said that they had to stop her from doing magic. Which made no sense. If everyone in her family could do magic all the way down to the roots of these trees, why couldn't she? Her hand reached out to trace down from her face to her father...and then to his father. Her grandmother's tree was in the background, greating a shadowy silver forest with depth though her's didn't have all the faces. Once she got to the bottom of her father's main tree her eyes moved over to her mothers. Which...was more like a vine. It wrapped down around the tree with a direct line of decendants instead of the small branches that the Darkthorne tree had.
Everyone in her family could do magic in some way or another. Why was it bad that she made sparkles from tears? Why would she and her parents get into trouble? Was it because she did it without a wand?
Selene drew her fingers back away from the silvery details on her wall. She rested her back against the metal of the chair and frowned. That had to be why. Her grandparents always had a wand out when they did magic. She was just...strange. And with all her confused little heart, Selene wished right there and then that she'd meet someone else who was as strange as she was. At least they'd understand.
