Who: Walburga Black What: Narrative filled with feels. Lots of feels. When: Saturday night after talking to Alphard Where: The woods. Duh. Rating: Umm...Emo.
There weren't all that many places Walburga figured she could go without being looked for. Regulus was his normal age and so he didn't need her anymore. Alphard was his normal age again and did need her. She knew he did. She could hear it in what he wrote and in what he didn't. She wanted to be there for him, but she was tired. The last two weeks had been terrible. It was like an impromptu test on how long she could hold herself together before she snapped. Of course, she had snapped, but as she hadn't completely broken, she counted it as a victory. That didn't mean that she could last forever. Eventually it would have evened out. At least she hoped. All this flux, however, left her nerves raw.
Alphard's writing made her heart ache. The fact that she knew he was back to the point in his life where he still wanted her made everything rush back and she found herself in need of fresh air. Nothing was okay. She'd lied. Everything was awful. Still, she would protect Alphard from how poorly she felt. She would promise everything would be okay and she would out stubborn all the feelings she was having. Once she'd had a moment to deal with them properly. Or improperly. Whichever way it happened.
She'd started just walking, but being around everything still left her tense and nothing was being solved. Nothing was being let out. So she went to the last place she expected anyone to look for her: the woods. Salazar's words rang in her mind. You're too lovely to be tramping through the woods. No matter how unsuited her clothes were not suited for the woods, she didn't care. She ignored the words in her head and ventured in anyway. Of course she was not fond of the idea of being dirty or of her clothes getting dirty, but she didn't really know where else to go. Everywhere else was somewhere someone might go looking for her. She wouldn't stay all night. Just for a little while. Just long enough to feel miserable in peace.
It was a while before she found herself deep enough in the woods that she felt she didn't have to worry about who would find her. The fact that it was night time probably meant she shouldn't be here, but here she was. She had her wand with her and she'd already cast Lumos, so she wouldn't be entirely in the dark, though she did rather wonder if she wasn't lost. That problem pushed aside, Walburga gingerly sat down on a tree that was fallen over and pulled her knees to her chest.
It didn't take long for everything to build up and for the feelings to surface. Alphard hadn't wanted her. For two weeks. Regulus had been a child she'd needed to protect. Her whole family would fall apart and everything would be lost. Alphard was dead. She was dead. Was everyone dead? The answer seemed to point to yes. Everyone died in the future. Even Cygnus and Orion. She had checked. They died the year Regulus died. They were both gone. Everyone was dead. She was alone for the last years of her life and it was all her own fault. The future was very real and Alphard would never speak to her again in it.
She didn't want that future. She didn't want any of it. She wanted to go back to before she knew because it was easier. It was simpler. She wanted to forget everything bad that was going to happen in the future, but she couldn't. The future was ever present. It was there to mock her during her waking hours. For two weeks, it was never missing. But she had dealt with the future before. She had looked at it and seen it. It was the future that kept Sirius from saying anything nice to her at first. It was the future that left her mostly alone in the beginning. She'd been glad to have it change when Alphard showed up. She'd hoped that it would be better. Only then she realised how much worse it got. Then the last two weeks happened and it proved to her just how terrible she was. That woman she would become. She was a monster, a nightmare. She haunted her in her dreams and in waking.
For the first time in her life, Walburga didn't care if she was crying. She didn't care if that weakness showed because she was in the dark and no one could really see. She could hide away and no one would look for her. Not in the woods. No one would suspect she'd be sitting in the middle of the woods and crying over a future she hoped never to experience. Why would they? She was Walburga Black and Walburga Black was an unyielding force. She would allow herself this moment to cry and fall apart and then she would tug on the strings that held her together. She would tie them tightly together and she was keep going. No one needed to know and no one needed to see it. With enough magic, she would make herself presentable enough to pass any inspection. She would be fine. But for now, she would let herself be broken because there wasn't a soul in the world who would know otherwise.