Christmas Eve had fallen and given rise to Christmas Day, or the wee hours of Christmas anyways. Father would be furious, she knew. She was supposed to attend a Christmas Eve ball at Black manor, supposed to be a pretty little arm piece for her betrothed, but instead she’d snuck out just before they were due to leave and gone off to have some real fun. Balls were boring, the Black family stuck up - not to mention she felt the absence of Andromeda probably the most of all. Of course Regulus was fun, making snide comments about their family and snickering behind their backs was fun… but Reggie would just have to do without her tonight. Because Emmanuel was far more fun than her cousin (who she constantly reminded was not really a cousin but a cousin of a cousin) could ever be. 

He’d taken her to muggle London to see the lights, treated her to dinner and promised her (not for the first time) that he was going to marry her one day. She’d laughed him off, she had a duty to her family. The ring that hung from a necklace when she wasn’t under the prying eyes of her family had never felt heavier than it had that night. She wanted nothing more than the life he promised. Emmanuel Shafiq, a pure-blood, but a blood traitor… She wanted nothing more than a life with him. But she’d seen what happened to blood traitors. They were forgotten, blasted off of family trees, their family pretended they didn’t exist. Especially when you belonged to the Black family and by association she did and if her father had his way, in less than a year she’d have the family name as well. She’d pushed thoughts of family and the life she was expected to live away and lived in the moment. 

The night had become darker the further they got from London, the city’s lights falling behind them. They’d apparated London to the small town that lay less than a kilometer from Rosebush Manor. She could have apparated right into her bedroom if she’d wanted, but she wasn’t ready to go to bed or to face Father’s wrath or Evan’s envy. And so they walked through the quiet town, Rose leaning against the taller man next to her with his arm wrapped around her shoulder. She was tired, but giddy, perhaps the effect of the two glasses of wine with dinner, or perhaps from merely getting to live her life for one night. 

“Look, I can see my breath.” It was uttered as a giggle before she blew a breath of hot air into the icy night. She watched as the breath ghosted into the night. 

Emmanuel chuckled, enjoying the girlish wonder in the blonde at his side. ‘So can I.’ He replied, repeating her actions before kissing the top of her head. 

They were both quiet for another moment, snow beginning to fall around them as they moved through the silent town. She moved slower with each step, trying to prevent the inevitable, trying to prolong her time with him before they reached the edge of Rosier property and had to part ways. But as the snow danced, so did something in her. She pulled away from him and darted down the middle of the deserted road, twirling with arms spread wide as she laughed in childish abandon. She never got to act like this. Father or Aunt Wulburga or Bellatrix or Narcissa or any number of a long list of adults would tell her she was being unladylike and misbehaving, but with Emmanuel she was free to be herself. 

And so she danced. She twirled and twisted, reveling in the giddy feeling in her heart. She froze when she felt an impact to her chest, a snowball expertly timed. She stared at the thrower before darting up the road and ducking behind a bush to make her own snowball. It was quickly launched at the male, the two laughing as a snowball fight ensued. Their laughter only grew. Her squeals becoming louder with each cold ball of snow flying towards her. It only made sense when the door to one of the houses opened and someone shouted to shut up, it was two in the morning. Rosaline covered her mouth, holding back a laugh rather unsuccessfully and kicking snow at Emmanuel before she took off up the path that would lead to her family’s house. 

He caught up to her as she paused to stare up at the manor house tucked away a short pathway up a hill and hidden to the unmagical eye. 

‘Rose…’ He paused, muscular arms wrapping around her waist. ‘You always have a place at my home.’ It wasn’t suspicious, he had no intentions other than protecting her. He wasn’t naive enough to think her family liked his or approved of their relationship in any way. He knew their relationship could very well be the end of her if they weren’t careful, it was making her see the truth in that knowledge that was hard. 

She shook her head as she leaned back into his hold, the childish glee having fled her body with the knowledge of returning home. “Just Papa and Evan.” She murmured. “Plus I have to finish school and…” She frowned as she turned in his arms to look up at him, pale fingers moving to brush over his dark cheek. “They’d never let me go. The Black family won’t let me go.” Her heart ached with those words, what she wouldn’t give to just be happy. 

‘They let Andromeda go.’ 

“And blasted her off the family tree. They pretend she never existed, Emmanuel. I…” She swallowed hard. She’d lost her mother. She’d lost Andromeda, the only cousin she’d looked up too. She wasn’t going to loose anymore family. “I can’t do that. I’m not as strong or as brave as Andi.” She murmured, admitting something only he would ever hear. “We… we can’t do this anymore, Em… In less than a year and a half Rosaline Rosier will be Rosaline Black and I just have to accept it.” She’d heard a variation on that sentence so many time during reprimands. A Black didn’t act the way she did. A Black had class and poise. She supposed there were worse suitors than Regulus even if neither of them was keen on marrying the other. 

‘You don’t have to accept that Rose. It’s the twentieth century, you can make your own decisions.’ He tried to reason, but she was either unable or unwilling to see the truth in his statement. 

“I’m sorry, Em.” She whispered, leaning up to kiss him quickly before pulling from his grasp and moving up the property to the house. 

————

The night had been one from a storybook, at least until she’d had to face the facts. She was betrothed. As much as she wanted to, she could not be with Emmanuel. At least not if she wanted to keep her family. Family or Emmanuel, it was a hard choice, but her family would always come first. She’d refused to look over her shoulder as she had walked up the path to her family home, refused to see if he was still waiting there. She was afraid she’d run back to him, afraid she wouldn’t make the right choice - at least the right choice according to all the family ideals she’d learned over seventeen years. She didn’t even look back as she shut the door to the house. 

Rosaline shrugged out of her coat, dropping it into the waiting hands of a house elf and kicked off her shoes. She had barely made it into the house before she heard Father’s voice - stern and harsh.

‘Where were you tonight, Rosaline?’ 

She missed the days when Father was Papa. When he loved her and doted on her, when he gave her whatever her little heart desired. But Papa had disappeared not long after Maman and Father had come to live in his place. Father was harsh and unforgiving, dark and angry. Scary really.  “I…” She began as she rounded the corner into his sitting room, but he didn’t let her finish. 

‘You were out with that blood traitor again!’ He barked, sitting a crystal glass of amber liquid onto the table beside his arm chair. The roaring fire that warmed the room served to make him look more ominous as well.

“And so what if I was?” Her courage escaped her before self-control could take over. Icy eyes widened as she took a step back, her father standing from his arm chair with a chilling calmness. 

‘You disgrace this family Rosaline.’ His words were just as calm as his posture and that was perhaps the most terrifying thing in her mind. ‘Where did I go wrong? I’ve given you everything you wanted, set you up with an advantageous marriage and you… You choose to go off gallivanting with a blood traitor when you should have been at the family function hosted by your future in-laws. What will you do if Orion and Wulburga decide Regulus should marry someone else? If they throw you aside?’ He spoke as she moved closer to her, ever so slowly closing the large distance between them.  

She swallowed, watching his every move. She told herself to flee, but her body didn’t want to obey. “I’ll marry Shafiq.” Defiantly her mouth moved, throwing caution to the wind again, her heart seeming to overpower her brain when her brain told her she was in danger. 

His face flashed in anger. ‘Crucio.’ He snapped. 

When had he grabbed his wand? She barely had time to think, much less have time to react before her body was falling to her knees. The pain spread quick and fiery. It felt as if her limbs were being pulled from her body, her muscles shredding. She cried out as her body twisted and writhed in a desperate attempt to get away, to flee, to save herself. There was nothing she could do though. It was amazing how one little word could bring to life so much hate, amazing how searing the pain of that hate could be. 

She didn’t hear as a one sided shouting match ensued behind her, Evan trying to talk Father down, warning him to stop this madness. All Rose’s brain could comprehend was the sound of her scream - shrill and pained, and the feeling of pain tearing her body apart from the inside out. Surely organs were failing, surely her skin was peeling back from her body, surely her heart would burst any second because this level of pain was incomprehensible and her body just couldn’t take it. 

A flash of green and just as quickly as the pain had come, it was gone. Her chest heaved with each breath she dragged in as she collapsed backwards, back hitting the marble flooring. Her heart pitter pattered around in her chest like a race horse, racing along side her lungs to return her body to normal. She let out a sob, tears falling from her eyes to join the others that had unknowingly fallen while under her Father’s curse. Her body still ached, throbbing with the after effects of the cruciatus, but it was nothing compared to the pain she’d endured seconds before. 

‘Rosie…’ It was a whisper, but she instinctively turned to it, reaching out for the owner of the voice, the boy who’d always been her safe haven from anything - storms to their father’s wrath. ‘You’re okay, Rosie Posie. Breathe..’ He soothed, scooting closer over the floor to comfort his trembling little sister. 

“Evan…” Fell from her lips in a whimper as she buried her face in his stomach, head resting against his lap. It was as far as her body was willing to move. 

She weeped and whimpered, clutching to his shirt as she fell into the blackness of exhaustion. He carried her to bed, pulling the covers over her before climbing into bed beside her. He held her close as she slept, soothed her back to sleep when she woke screaming hours later, and was there when the sun rose and welcomed in Christmas Day. 

It was summer and for a reason an eight year old Rosaline couldn’t fathom they were vacationing in England. Dismal, cloudy England. Rose had pouted the first day or two they’d been there, complaining to no one in particular about how much the weather was gross, or how the house was dark and not fun. She was used to the light airiness of Chateau Rosier afterall. But then a woman whose name she only knew because she’d caught Andromeda and Narcissa whispering about her, Aunt Wulburga, had brought her two sons over and a little Rosaline finally had someone her own age to play with.

  But the attention had turned to the youngest one, Regulus and Rosaline wasn’t used to sharing the attention. So, she’d goaded him away, mocked him until he’d followed her out into the expanse of the land owned by her cousin’s family. Skipping across the landscape, finding the biggest, tallest tree she could. She had stared up at it before quickly moving to ascend the tree, limb by limb climbing higher.

“Well zen, you come on.” She chided, French accent making some of her words hard to understand. “Or are you to let a little girl show you up?” Of course he was younger than her, but she was smaller. ‘Oh, shut up.’ He had snapped as he hurried to follow her up the tree. “I bet you, zat I can jump from ‘igher in zis tree zen you.” She could see the look of determination on his face as she challenged him.

Finally to the top, she stared down from the tippy top of a tree several times her age, Regulus not far behind her. Her dress was split in several places and though she knew Father would be angry, she knew Mother would calm him and fix her dress without pause. But she was having fun, for the first time since they’d arrived in England. 

She sat in a very unladylike fashion, one leg on either side of the tree and waited. Waited, for Regulus to join her.’We could break an arm from up here.’ He warned her, high dark gaze following her pale gaze right to the ground. She looked over to him, raising a challenging brow and shrugged. “So?” She smirked. “Just land correct.” She said as if it were the most logical thing in the world.

They sat, perched in the tree, both staring down for a collection of several minutes, neither willing to move first. But Rose knew if she were to hurt herself at least Maman would be there to heal the hurt and baby her until she felt better. Then the attention would be back to her, where it belonged. ‘They’re watching.’ Regulus muttered, nodding towards an audience of three - Evan, Andromeda and Narcissa.

“You are going to jump?” She asked, finally looking from the ground to the boy sitting next to her, ignoring his mention of anyone watching. “I am.” She nodded, putting a brave face back on as she lifted one leg over the branch she sat on so that both dangled over the same side. She waited until he mirrored her position, took a deep breath. “Un…” Exhaled slowly. “Deux…” Inhaled and then… “Trois.” Pushed herself off the branch.

The fall down was exhilarating and terrifying all at once. Until she hit the ground with too much force and something in her left knee popped and she let out a wail of pain. She looked up, clutching at her knee, to see Regulus still perched on his branch. She looked away just in time to see Evan rushing to her side and Mother just a few paces behind. “Maman, j’ai mal!” She cried. “Ça fait mal.” She whimpered, English lost to the haze of pain. ’Chut! Ne t'inquiète pas. Maman va le rendre meilleur.’ Her mother soothed, picking her up gently and cradling her in loving arms. Rose calmed only slightly, the pain still radiating, but happy to have the attention returned to her however fleeting this moment may be. ’Pourquoi voudries-tu faire une chose pareille?’ Her mother demanded causing Rose to throw a look over her mother’s shoulder to the dark haired boy climbing down from the tree now. “Il m’a fait le faire.” She wrongly blamed without pause, a smirk breaking through the tears aimed at the boy she’d baited along.