MARA WILLIAMS

"Welcome children!" The odd woman said with a dramatic wave of her hands, "...In this room, together, we shall explore the unparalleled art of divination!" She stepped closer, raising her hands higher into the air. "...In this room you shall discover untold secrets about your past, your present and maybe for a lucky few even you're future."

I shot a sidewards glance at Hermione who seemed just as disbelieving as I was and we exchanged a brief smirk as the eccentric woman continued, "Today we will be focusing on Tesseomancy, the art of reading tea leaves."

"What a load of bollocks." I said under my breath but Parvati wasn't listening, she was staring entirely transfixed at Professor Trelawney, hanging desperately off her every word as though it were a matter of life and death.

"So would you please take the cup of the person opposite you." She said right as she walked into her cart of spare cups, sending a few clattering to the hardwood. "...Oh deary me."

"Looks like she didn't see that one coming..." Mumbled Hermione and I couldn't help but laugh, I couldn't believe that people actually thought this kind of rubbish was real, and clearly Hermione didn't either.
She was the smartest person I knew, and if it was good enough for her, it was good enough for me.

"Isn't she wonderful..." Parvati whispered dreamily, and I looked around to see who she was talking about, but she only stared dead ahead at the Professor.

"Who?"

She sighed as she took my cup, "Trelawney of course, she's just such a talent, one day I hope I can be just like her."

Right. Forgot she wanted to be one of those aurorauologists or whatever it was, probably something equally meaningless.

Begrudgingly I took Hermione's cup as she took Parvati's, staring down into the muddy brown leaves. "Says here you're going to experience great turmoil, and you've got a sightless eye which means..." I flicked between the pages of the book to find what I was looking for. "...You're also going to suffer."

Hermione raised her eyebrows at me. "Charming."
She stared down at the small porcelain cup in her hands and simply mumbled, "Resurgence."

"Oh my god..." Parvati gasped, which caught all of our attention, including Professor Trelawney as she came scurrying over.

"What is it child," She asked, adjusting her thick rimmed spectacles and leaning in so close to Parvati that there was hardly any space between them. "What do you see?"

"I see... A heartbreak, a great loss of some sort..." Fine lines wrinkled her forehead as she frowned, "...So much fear, so much darkness... A-And the return of something you once lost..."

Trelawney made made Hermione and I jump when she clapped her hands together in glee, "Well done Parvati, simply terrific job! Here, let me take that."

No sooner had Trelawney taken the cup from Parvati's shaking hands had it smashed against the floor, sharp shards of porcelain flying in every direction.

The entire class looked up, and the Professor's eyes were wide and frightful but she wasn't looking at the mess she'd made... She was staring directly at me.

She looked as though she were in some sort of demonic trance as she roughly grabbed my wrist, thin fingers fastening around me like boney shackles and her sharp nails cutting into my skin.
Trelawney's big green eyes flickered rapidly between my own. "... A blackness lies ahead of you child, you may be in mortal danger..."

"So I've heard." I scoffed, but my wit quickly diminished when the Professor didn't so much as blink, instead drawing closer and holding me tighter.

"Get off, you're hurting me!"
But she didn't let go and when she spoke her voice was scarcely her own as she whispered quickly,
"-Beware of the snake. Beware of the hiss before the strike... But most of all beware of the bite."

The only sound to pierce the veil was the thundering of my heart. Professor Trelawney's face was just as ghostly as the prophecies she foretold and twice as grim. "You will meet him. Don't you dare look him in the eye..." She trailed off, muttering more to herself than anyone else, "Never look a snake in the eye."

• • •

MARA WILLIAMS (ONE YEAR PRIOR)

"Mara..." He called softly through the lock, "Solnyshko, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... I just lost my temper."

Lies. He wasn't sorry, he never was.
-That was all it ever was, just a momentary loss of control. But a moment was all it took for bones to crack and blood to flow, I should know, it was always me.

"Mara please, just open the door." He spoke gently as the door handle begin to twist and shake, rattling with the force.

I cowered back against the headboard of bed with my wand clutched tightly between my sweaty palms, the bedsheets coiled around my limbs like silken serpents.

"Leave me alone!" I cried, and I flinched when a deafening bang sounded as he threw himself against the locked door.

I knew this losing game, and I knew it well. I'd played many times and every variant yielded the same fractured result, still it didn't stop me from trying, I would never give in to him.

"Open the fucking door!" He yelled as yet another bang resonated, and he attempted to break the door down, the single barrier that held my life by a string.

A slight crack had began to form down the centre of the only thing that separated him from me as desperate pleading sobs began to flee my mouth, begging him to stop.

-But he didn't hear, he never listened to my pleas.
He only ever took and he took what he wanted, when he wanted.

I could see the flashes of movement through the cracks in the splintered wood, glimpses of what was to come.
The banging and crashes halted for a brief moment enough for me to hear my own sobs, as he stopped his attack.

"Solnyshko, I'm sorry... Just please... Let me in." He begged, an audible fracture in his dulcet tone as if worrying that he could break me with one wrong whisper.
He knew exactly how to play this game. A sweet little promise, of a life worth living. A temptation. And a heavy handed fist. That was all it took to win, or so he thought.

He had done so before, and he would do so again. Nothing between us would change, no one could be crowned the victor until the game was over and one of us was dead.

He would never let me forget the feeling of his godless touch. Never withholding, never relenting.

My body was a map of his anger, every outburst and cry etched permanently into my skin.
Miserable sobs wracked my body, threatening to overspill the brim of unconsciousness as my head span dangerously and stars swam at the outskirts of my vision.

"...I can't." I whispered through the haze of tears that consumed my vision, rendering me unable to think, unable to breathe, unable to flee.

The door handle began to shake violently and the cursive hiss of his native tongue pierced the wood. "Klyanus' bogom, yesli ty ne otkroyesh' dver', ya, blyad', ub'yu tebya sam!"

I understood little of what he said, but I understood enough to know that he would make good on his word.
A blood curdling scream escaped from my lips as the door suddenly flew open and Viktor stormed in with bloody fists and hellish intent.
I instinctively tried to back up further on to the bed to escape his wicked reach but I was only met with my back smashing against the headboard.

It was a pain I could ignore.
-Unlike the pain that Viktor liked to inflict, he preferred the kind that served as a constant reminder. The kind that left a mark, bloody and aching.
The type that meant there was no coming back. The type that meant that by the time that he was done with me, nobody would ever want me.

"When I tell you to do something, you better fucking make sure you do it! And don't you dare run away from me!" He boomed, as a sickening mix of panic and anticipation for what was about to happen hit my body like a tidal wave, threatening to drown me beneath my self made sea of sorrow.

I let out a small whimper, there was no use fighting, arguing only made it worse. "I'm sorry..." I began, but was cut off as Viktor lashed out with his fist, catching my cheek in a bitter embrace and sending me sprawling across the bed.
White hot pain raced through my face as I clutched my cheek. My frightful eyes met his, like a deer in the headlights, and I couldn't hold back the fear any longer.
Trickles of silent tears began to spill from my eyes, carving their paths down my cheeks like sorrowful rivers, staining me with their damning misery.

But there was something else... A heat, a hotness behind it all. Something new, something bitter, something violent.

I'd had enough.

"Solnyshko..." He whispered, his voice was softer now, gentle almost. He'd noticed the shift in me too, this was something entirely different. There was no use in attempting to soothe the emotional wounds that he caused, it was far too late for that now.
He'd finally pushed me too far and I'd fallen off the edge of all control, losing my grip on all semblance of sanity. "-I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, I just... I love you."

Liar. I clutched my wand tightly, my fingers shivered and shook as I cried the word that single handedly tore my world apart with every ounce of conviction pounding in my chest. Enough was enough. "-Crucio."

***
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