- Messages
- 11,820
- OOC First Name
- Camilla
- Blood Status
- Half Blood
- Relationship Status
- Divorced
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- Straight
- Wand
- Rosewood Wand 14 1/4" Essence Of Hair From The Mane Of A Unicorn
- Age
- 48
((This is just sad hours flashback, set about 17 IC years ago))
You're lucky.
Violet had to tell herself that every damn day, staring in the mirror with bleary eyes as she'd aggressively smear foundation and lipstick on, trying to appear semi-presentable.
After screwing up your last years at Hogwarts, you're damned lucky you're standing here at all.
She sure as hell didn't feel lucky by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, she had a fair few things to be grateful for. She was grateful she found a job, even if it was dull, monotonous, and had no chance for promotion. It was staring at figures all day, the kind of repetitive work that was bound to push her over the edge eventually. She was grateful she had someone to live with, even if they barely even talked anymore, let alone expressed any sort of affection. There was something they'd each fallen for and decided they wanted in their lives from each other, but each day Violet had a harder time remembering what it was. She had a place to live, even if it was falling apart and an hour and a half's train trip from the office.
"God, Martyn," she'd manage to mumble in to her pillow every other night, collapsing after a long day. "I'm sorry. Maybe...maybe next month we can afford to go have a weekend away." But there was never the time, nor the energy, nor the motivation.
Everything was so secretive too. Not by choice, naturally. But she had to lie, constantly. She'd lied to get her way in to this job, magicking up some records that proved her education was a genuine, almost-respectable muggle education and not...whatever it had been. Constantly telling stories that she rehearsed in her brain, over and over. Oh yes, school was great. I always liked maths. Lies, upon lies, upon lies.
But that's what you do when you love someone, isn't it? Lie to them, over and over and over again?
It got easier, in a sense. She was numbed to it. You told enough lies, you started to believe them. Like you weren't anything special. Like you should be grateful for misery because at least you were alive. Like some horrific dedication to the stiff upper lip, a holdover from the British presumably. You should be grateful to be lost, because you had a chance to be found.
She certainly couldn't find herself and there was nobody left to find her.
Next month. Next month will be better.
She really was an expert liar. She almost managed to convince herself that it really would get better. She just had to work harder, pull herself upright and maybe she'd be able to be a better wife. She must have loved him, and surely he still loved her, even when she was worked to death. Maybe they'd do something for her birthday. Maybe he'd get a better job and she wouldn't have to work as hard as she was. Maybe they'd even talk about having kids. Everyone else around them was doing it, why weren't they? That was what they were supposed to do, right? Marry, have kids, save up for a mortgage and holidays down on the coast once a year? Continue to pretend you were who you said you were and hide everything unique and interesting about yourself to survive?
Lies, upon lies, upon lies.
The problem with believing in your own lies, though, was that it hurt even more when they unravelled. And on her thirtieth birthday, Violet opened the door to the horrid, dingy flat she and her husband shared and found him entangled with their neighbour.
If she looked back at it, she knew. She'd known for a long time. No matter how many times she promised him things would get better, they didn't, and she knew he didn't want to bother even pretending to put in the effort anymore. But she'd told herself over and over again that it would, that this was how life was supposed to be, that you'd marry someone who could tolerate you well enough and force yourselves to be happy.
"You're a damned liar, Vi," he yelled, the awful neighbour curled up on the couch she'd spent months saving up for watching them with bored disinterest. Oh, how she wanted to throttle her. The pair of them, taking the last vestiges of her camouflage and tearing it apart in front of her. "There's no bloody records of you until a few years ago. I was willing to put all that aside but you don't even f'n try any more, do you?"
She trembled, feeling the urge to reach for her wand for the first time in years. If she wasn't prepared for trying to live a "normal" existence, she was even less prepared for when that all crumbled around her.
"I don't try? I don't try? You think I haven't been trying for years? You think I want to live like this? You think I want to wake up every god damned day of my life knowing I'm a failure and a lost cause and my husband has been sleeping with the neighbour this whole time?"
"You're so bloody dramatic. 'Spose that's what I get, marrying a witch."
Her blood ran cold. Had she slipped up? He shouldn't have known. As far as he should have been concerned, witches and wizards were the realm of fiction. She'd worked so hard to prevent anyone from knowing. It was hard, like cutting off limbs to try and fit in to a mould. But there wasn't a place for her in the wizarding world, so she had to make a home in the muggle world. She lied to herself every day, telling her that was where she belonged and she'd make herself fit in, eventually.
"There's no such thing as magic," she hissed. "If I was a witch, I'd be a lot better off than I am now."
"You told me yourself, Vi. Not like you speak to me often. You're a sleep talker though."
She swore, then, loudly and angrily. Mixed with a scream of anguish, grabbing at her waist to find her wand, with shaking hands.
"And you aren't going to tell anyone, damn you." She paused. It would've been easy to use the killing curse, wouldn't it? It's not like she hadn't already engaged questionable uses of magic to keep up pretence along the way. Two words and a wave of the wand, and her problems would be solved.
Even she couldn't believe that lie. A consummate liar she may have been, fallen far from the paragon of virtue she was as a little girl, but she wasn't a murderer.
She wasn't, however, ready to take the high road on this one.
"Obliviate."
The next morning she was gone, her beloved couch and a few boxes of personal items shoved in to a hired van. One final lie for the road, a mixture of false memories implanted in their brains and the separation underway with a lawyer. He'd forget all about her. The worst thing about being the liar, though, was knowing the truth all along and having to live with it.
There has to be a way. There has to be a place for kids who don't belong in either world, right? I'll carve it out myself, if I have to.
This time, she prayed it wasn't a lie.
You're lucky.
Violet had to tell herself that every damn day, staring in the mirror with bleary eyes as she'd aggressively smear foundation and lipstick on, trying to appear semi-presentable.
After screwing up your last years at Hogwarts, you're damned lucky you're standing here at all.
She sure as hell didn't feel lucky by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, she had a fair few things to be grateful for. She was grateful she found a job, even if it was dull, monotonous, and had no chance for promotion. It was staring at figures all day, the kind of repetitive work that was bound to push her over the edge eventually. She was grateful she had someone to live with, even if they barely even talked anymore, let alone expressed any sort of affection. There was something they'd each fallen for and decided they wanted in their lives from each other, but each day Violet had a harder time remembering what it was. She had a place to live, even if it was falling apart and an hour and a half's train trip from the office.
"God, Martyn," she'd manage to mumble in to her pillow every other night, collapsing after a long day. "I'm sorry. Maybe...maybe next month we can afford to go have a weekend away." But there was never the time, nor the energy, nor the motivation.
Everything was so secretive too. Not by choice, naturally. But she had to lie, constantly. She'd lied to get her way in to this job, magicking up some records that proved her education was a genuine, almost-respectable muggle education and not...whatever it had been. Constantly telling stories that she rehearsed in her brain, over and over. Oh yes, school was great. I always liked maths. Lies, upon lies, upon lies.
But that's what you do when you love someone, isn't it? Lie to them, over and over and over again?
It got easier, in a sense. She was numbed to it. You told enough lies, you started to believe them. Like you weren't anything special. Like you should be grateful for misery because at least you were alive. Like some horrific dedication to the stiff upper lip, a holdover from the British presumably. You should be grateful to be lost, because you had a chance to be found.
She certainly couldn't find herself and there was nobody left to find her.
Next month. Next month will be better.
She really was an expert liar. She almost managed to convince herself that it really would get better. She just had to work harder, pull herself upright and maybe she'd be able to be a better wife. She must have loved him, and surely he still loved her, even when she was worked to death. Maybe they'd do something for her birthday. Maybe he'd get a better job and she wouldn't have to work as hard as she was. Maybe they'd even talk about having kids. Everyone else around them was doing it, why weren't they? That was what they were supposed to do, right? Marry, have kids, save up for a mortgage and holidays down on the coast once a year? Continue to pretend you were who you said you were and hide everything unique and interesting about yourself to survive?
Lies, upon lies, upon lies.
The problem with believing in your own lies, though, was that it hurt even more when they unravelled. And on her thirtieth birthday, Violet opened the door to the horrid, dingy flat she and her husband shared and found him entangled with their neighbour.
If she looked back at it, she knew. She'd known for a long time. No matter how many times she promised him things would get better, they didn't, and she knew he didn't want to bother even pretending to put in the effort anymore. But she'd told herself over and over again that it would, that this was how life was supposed to be, that you'd marry someone who could tolerate you well enough and force yourselves to be happy.
"You're a damned liar, Vi," he yelled, the awful neighbour curled up on the couch she'd spent months saving up for watching them with bored disinterest. Oh, how she wanted to throttle her. The pair of them, taking the last vestiges of her camouflage and tearing it apart in front of her. "There's no bloody records of you until a few years ago. I was willing to put all that aside but you don't even f'n try any more, do you?"
She trembled, feeling the urge to reach for her wand for the first time in years. If she wasn't prepared for trying to live a "normal" existence, she was even less prepared for when that all crumbled around her.
"I don't try? I don't try? You think I haven't been trying for years? You think I want to live like this? You think I want to wake up every god damned day of my life knowing I'm a failure and a lost cause and my husband has been sleeping with the neighbour this whole time?"
"You're so bloody dramatic. 'Spose that's what I get, marrying a witch."
Her blood ran cold. Had she slipped up? He shouldn't have known. As far as he should have been concerned, witches and wizards were the realm of fiction. She'd worked so hard to prevent anyone from knowing. It was hard, like cutting off limbs to try and fit in to a mould. But there wasn't a place for her in the wizarding world, so she had to make a home in the muggle world. She lied to herself every day, telling her that was where she belonged and she'd make herself fit in, eventually.
"There's no such thing as magic," she hissed. "If I was a witch, I'd be a lot better off than I am now."
"You told me yourself, Vi. Not like you speak to me often. You're a sleep talker though."
She swore, then, loudly and angrily. Mixed with a scream of anguish, grabbing at her waist to find her wand, with shaking hands.
"And you aren't going to tell anyone, damn you." She paused. It would've been easy to use the killing curse, wouldn't it? It's not like she hadn't already engaged questionable uses of magic to keep up pretence along the way. Two words and a wave of the wand, and her problems would be solved.
Even she couldn't believe that lie. A consummate liar she may have been, fallen far from the paragon of virtue she was as a little girl, but she wasn't a murderer.
She wasn't, however, ready to take the high road on this one.
"Obliviate."
The next morning she was gone, her beloved couch and a few boxes of personal items shoved in to a hired van. One final lie for the road, a mixture of false memories implanted in their brains and the separation underway with a lawyer. He'd forget all about her. The worst thing about being the liar, though, was knowing the truth all along and having to live with it.
There has to be a way. There has to be a place for kids who don't belong in either world, right? I'll carve it out myself, if I have to.
This time, she prayed it wasn't a lie.