"this is what makes us girls
we all look for heaven and we put love first
something that we'd die for, it's our curse
don't cry about it, don't cry about it"

JUNE 28TH, 1996

The owls interrupted breakfast at Malfoy Manor. Narcissa set aside the Prophet, looking at her two children: Draco had finished his toast a few minutes ago, and was simply sitting at the table to have some company, and Maia stirred her cereal with a bored face. The two brown owls perched on the corner of the table closest to the window and waited impatiently for Narcissa to give them some food.

"Both of your names are here. Is it the OWLs already?" The blonde woman asked.

Draco reached out to snatch the envelopes from his mother's hands, and left the one that bore the name of Maia Narcissa in front of his sister, while he tore his. In a few seconds he read the content, snorted and then threw the wrapper in front of his mother.

"Not hungry anymore. I'm going upstairs."

Maia knew that he wasn't reacting like that because of his OWL grades, but because of the mark that was beating on his forearm: it was something so intense that Maia thought she was feeling it herself. She shared a look with her mother, who clenched her lips in a thin line as her eyes got wet. It hurt Maia to see her like that; in spite of everything she was her mother, so she tried.

"I got O in the eight OWLs I took." Maia read out loud as she checked all her subjects - Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, DADA, Potions, Astronomy, History of Magic and Arithmancy.

Maia, lost in her thoughts, paid no attention to Narcissa, who was congratulating her. At another time she would have been proud, she might have bragged about it, but she didn't know why that kind of control didn't make her happy. With those grades in the OWLs she could take all the NEWTs and probably end up being accepted in any academy, even in the Ministry. But what kind of respectable academy was going to want to accept a daughter and sister of Death Eaters? Who guaranteed that she would turn seventeen and get to take those exams?

"So, have you decided which profession you want to do? I'm sure you'll be capable of anything, dear."

A single tear rolled down her cheek and landed on the parchment, where Maia's eyes were still fixed. "I'm not sure yet, mother."

TODAY

If someone could get into Maia's head, they would probably explode from the mix of emotions the girl felt. She was angry: she wasn't used to feeling so subdued and so humiliated — that man still doesn't know who I am, she repeated to herself over and over again, because if he knew he would have already swallowed his own wand; and from the rage came frustration, as she was eager to teach Amycus Carrow a lesson. How dare he put his hand on her? Of course, if someone found out about this, Carrow probably wouldn't survive another night. However, she knew that she should keep quiet, because surely, if anyone saw her wandering with her bleeding lip they would start whispering and asking questions, and that was something she was not willing to tolerate.

Something that people misunderstood about Maia was that she had no feelings. Oh, yes, she did. What kind of human person had no feelings? She had grown up in a loving environment, had grown up with care and hadn't lacked anything. She got angry with her parents from time to time, especially when she had been younger, and her heart swelled with joy every time she saw her parents during holidays again. Although her feelings had changed as she had grown, that didn't mean that from one moment to another everything had vanished. All the love she had felt now was reduced to ashes and her heart was full of resentment, desire for revenge and determination to save her brother.

Although right now the only feeling in her mind was the pain she felt on her lip. She ran her tongue and noticed the metallic taste of blood, and cursed under her breath: it was certainly busted. She clenched her fists and sped up. You will be quieter next time, Carrow had said, and she had stared at him, what the now professor had interpreted as having understood him and would not happen again. However, what the Death Eater didn't know was that protecting Draco was the only thing she was sure would happen again. After all, if she had returned to Hogwarts, it was for him. Because, what kind of person in their right mind would return to the place they had once called home, but which was now occupied by Death Eaters? However, judging by appearances, Maia was favored by this whole situation: she belonged to the dark side, it could even be that she herself was one of them, she would love to live surrounded by her own, looking superiorly to the muggle-borns and others who constantly feared for their lives.

They could not be more wrong.

The clock had just struck eleven. She tried to enter the Hospital Wing with secrecy. She decided that she would look for some potion or ointment to calm the pain, that she would do it with stealth and that she would come out quickly. 

"What are you doing here?" She heard someone say behind her. Ginny raised her wand against her, and on her face she saw such contempt that her heart moved to the thought that she really saw her as an adversary.

"What are you doing here? It's past curfew." Weasley lowered her wand, as if she understood that the one who was in control in those circumstances was the Malfoy.

"It's past your curfew too, but I get it, you can walk free around here," Her face fell when she saw Maia's lip. "You're bleeding. What happened?"

"You don't care." Maia said, but it didn't come across as rude, but as genuine. "I just wanted to grab something for the pain and then leave."

"Here, I can help you. I work with Madam Pomfrey when I have free time. She's overwhelmed nowadays." Ginny trailed off. She didn't know if talking was a good choice when it came to Maia Malfoy, who just stared at her. Ginny cleared her throat before the attentive gaze of the Malfoy and approached her.

The Malfoy was substantially taller than her, so she had to sit on one of the stretchers for Ginny to take a look. The redhead searched through the shelves while Maia looked at her, somewhat uncomfortable. Ginny pressed a gauze against her lip, and Maia shivered.

"You don't seem to be one to get into fights —physical, at least."

"It's not a fight when you don't punch back." Maia answered, simply.

Ginny just nodded. "The swelling will pass in an hour, more or less, if you take this."

"For whatever reason you're here this late, you should get back to your Common Room. The Carrows have appointed students from all houses to watch the castle at night, and you know what fear does to people." Maia shook the potion in front of her eyes. "Thank you."

Maia left before she could hear the other girl's response. She drank the liquid inside the glass and put it in a pocket of her robe. Despite the advice she had given to Weasley, going straight to her room was what Maia least wanted. The lip hadn't yet returned to its normal state and she was convinced that if any of her roommates were still awake they would ask questions.

So when she reached the first floor, instead of going down the stairs again to reach the dungeons, she turned right and went out into the courtyard. She watched carefully that there was no one around her, and that from the classroom windows there was no one contemplating her, and when she had made sure of her solitude, she took out a cigarette and a notebook. She lit the cigarette between her lips, exhaled deeply and searched something in her pockets. Finally she took out a pen, a gift from her father. With her fingers she noticed the relief embedded in the material. Malfoy, could be read perfectly under the moonlight.

She wished with all her might to say that she hated him, that she hated being in the company of his presence and that she hoped they never crossed paths again, but she couldn't do it. She hadn't seen her father for more than a year, when he had entered Azkaban after the battle at the Ministry, and although at times she had blamed the students who had broken into the Ministry, she knew that her father had it coming and that there was no one else to blame but himself. Added to the time she had not seen him - and therefore, a time in which her father hadn't been able to screw up even more - were all the memories of her childhood, a childhood surrounded by love and warmth, certainly more thanks to her mother, but in her memory her father always appeared with a smile, squeezing the shoulders of his twins proudly.

Because what Draco and Maia had most desired throughout their young lives had been to impress their father, to make Lucius proud of them. That is why both had learned to play Quidditch from an early age, had secured a position on the team, had invested much of their time in their studies and also in discrediting Potter and his friends. While Draco had continued to act up, Maia had stopped trying to make her father proud when she realized the horrible things he was doing and the consequences that all this could have. Now, despite her attempt of redemption, they were condemned.

"Looking good, miss." A voice behind her said.

Eden Whitaker smirked as he pointed at her figure with the lantern. Maia rolled her eyes when she saw him, but didn't move from her position. The boy approached her and turned off the lantern so that no one could discover them.

"What are you doing here?" Maia thought that was all she was saying tonight.

Eden shrugged "The Carrows thought it was a good idea to have me as vigilant. Truth is I've been planning to sneak into the kitchen. You won't want some candy, will you?"

"Cheeky."

Maia said nothing more; she focused all her attention on the notebook in front of her. She muttered things that Eden didn't understand, pointed and crossed out many other things before the watchful eye of her friend, who began to understand Maia's attitude.

"So, how are we gonna do it?" He said at last.

"We should go anywhere more private. Anyone could hear us here."

The two jumped off the wall they had sat on and entered the castle. Along the way, Eden told her that the Carrows had gotten Dumbledore's office, and that during the day they barely left it, as if they were looking for something. They slept in rooms on the top floor, which had belonged to other teachers who, for various reasons, hadn't come to Hogwarts that year. Eden had received the orders after dinner, and right after he saw them go up the stairs, so he assumed that the Death Eater siblings were already in bed.

They arrived at the prefects' bathroom, and both decided that it was a safe enough place to talk.

"We can stay outside. Myrtle might hear us if we speak, and you can't kill someone twice." Eden laughed.

"Actually, you're wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"That's how we're gonna do it, Eden."

And she began to explain how she had discovered Lord Voldemort's weakness. How a young Tom Riddle had begun to be interested in reaching the power of the magical world, how he had wanted to expand his life, wanting to become an immortal being, and how he had managed to separate his soul into seven pieces, and how Maia herself had discovered what were those objects.They lay their backs on the cold wall, and Maia reopened the notebook to show the details to Eden, who listened attentively but with a skeptic left on his face.

"They are called Horcruxes. He divided his soul into seven pieces," Maia said as she pointed at her book. "Everything he chose to be a Horcrux is attached to him in any way. You remember our second year, right? When the chamber was opened. Some Gryffindor pricks were saying that it was the diary," she crossed the name Diary of Tom Riddle," what enabled the chamber to be opened again. That it manipulated people to do what it wanted them to do. Turns out it was my father who had it before the incident, and when the Dark Lord found out it had been destroyed he flew off the handle. Think: what could be strong enough to tell someone to reopen the chamber, and important enough to make him that angry?"

"He was so mad because he had lost a part of his life. A Horcrux." Eden said, and Maia nodded, "So it was destroyed? How do you know?"

"The rumor has been running aroung Hogwarts since 1993, and I was there when my father told him that it had been destroyed. I saw him; his eyes turned red, and he was so angry that he tortured my father. The Dark Lord thought having my family watching him while being tortured is what would hurt my father the most: the fact of us seeing that he no longer was strong, that he was the one who was being controlled, and not vice versa." Maia shivered a bit, and Eden looked at her sympathetically. "And because I confirmed it. Ginny Weasley was the one who opened the chamber under Tom Riddle's orders and was there when the basilisk escaped. I used Legilimency on her, and I saw it."

Eden touched her shoulder, again gently in his gestures."I know you don't like to use Legilimency and I—"

"I also used it on my parents," Maia continued, ignoring her friend's comment. "That's how I discovered three more of them. I asked nicely, but they told me I was too young to know what they were talking about, so I had to do it the dirty way. There's Ravenclaw's diadem, Slytherin's locket and Hufflepuff's cup. That makes sense because Tom Riddle's only been happy —if that's the accurate word— here, in Hogwarts, so it would be logical for him to keep parts of his soul in legendary Hogwarts objects. Those three Horcruxes are yet to be found and get ridden of."

Eden sighed.

"That makes four of them. What do you say are the rest?"

"First we have his snake. That beast is called Nagini and it's always by his side. Literally the snake never leaves his side. I'd say Nagini is a Horcrux because what kind of person takes his snake even to bed? Seriously, I've seen that thing kill people. I'm sure it's one of them." Maia, once again, draw a tick next to Nagini's name, as she had done with the three previous objects. "Then we have Marvolo Gaunt's ring. He was his grandfather, and was a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, so besides belonging to Slytherin, it belonged to a pureblood relative, which could be highly admired by Tom. This one's also destroyed." Maia said quickly as she crossed the name.

"Wait, how?"

"Dumbledore destroyed it. Saw his hand last year? It was black and putrid. That's the kind of consequences you have to face if you ever have to keep an Horcrux. It will destroy you. It's the aftermath of daring to even touch one of his valued Horcruxes."

Maia closed her notebook quickly and Eden was startled.

"How can you know Dumbledore did it? Not even your parents could've known that."

"Because I was with him when he did it." Due to Maia's face and voice tone, Eden knew he should drop it. "What do you think Draco will think of me?" 

Maia's only real concern was Draco. Her brother, her soulmate, what was he going to think of her when he discovered that she wanted to end all that she had been raised with? What would he think when he thought she was endangering her entire family? Maia couldn't let her brother to go through all that, and that is why she was determined to end all the Voldemort Horcruxes and him if necessary: ​​because it was the only way in which Draco could live a life.

"If he doesn't realize he has the bravest person alive as his sister, then he can fuck off."

Maia scoffed, but heard something that made her stop immediately. To her right, light but remarkable steps began to approach. Eden's lantern remained off, and they both looked at each other. If it was any of the Carrows they were screwed. However, both raised their wands when the starlight shadow approached their position.

The youngest of the Weasleys widened her eyes when she was discovered. Maia cursed under her breath.

"You again? I thought I told you to go to your dorm."

"Piss off, Malfoy. That's what I was trying to do."

Eden laughed under his breath. "You two will have to leave, anyways. Pansy and I were going to meet at midnight to check there hasn't been any incident, and if she's the one who catches you red-handed, she won't be as gentle as me. Good night."

The boy lit the lantern and said goodbye again, disappearing down the stairs. Maia turned to Ginny, who for reasons the blonde didn't know, was still there.

"You can't lie to me, Weasley. Your dorm isn't one hour away from the Hospital Wing. What you've been doing, I don't know, and honestly, I don't care. But watch out. You don't know who you're messing with."