Help-Haiti Fic for vegablack62
Title: 100 Moments in Millicent Bulstrode's Life
Rating: High PG-13
Characters: Adrian Pucey, Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, Alexander Bulstrode, Lucien Bulstrode, Marcus Flint, and Millicent Bulstrode
Pairings: Adrian Pucey/Millicent Bulstrode, Blaise Zabini/Millicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott/Millicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott/Daphne Greengrass, Marcus Flint/Katie Bell
Era: 1980-1998
Word Count: 10,000
Story Summary: Millicent's life, from the beginning, to an end, and to another beginning.
To be honest, Millicent thinks the only reason her parents didn’t kill her as a child is the fact that she didn’t cry. While all of her brothers cried something awful as children, according to Marcus, who has never falsified his information, Millicent only screamed when she was angry and never shed a tear. Her father boasts about this to his friends well into her teenage years, and she blushes under the praise instead of feeling embarrassed, as it is one of the few times she knows her father remembers she exists.
She is eighteen the first time she cries.
:::
Her earliest memory of Marcus is her fifth birthday. She’s standing outside on the balcony with her older brothers, Alexander and Lucien, watching the sunset and ignoring her guests. Marcus comes outside just as the top of the sun disappears behind the far away trees. He’s ten, the same age as Alexander, but when he smiles at her it doesn’t feel patronizing and when she tells him about the Faerie Queen carrying the sun, he doesn’t tell her to stop believing in fairy tales. He simply nods his head and agrees before pulling Alexander back inside, where everything feels dead.
:::
The following year, Alexander and Marcus go off to school. The Bulstrodes are late getting to the train station because Lucien doesn’t want Alexander to leave and throws a fit in the middle of the kitchen, so he’s beaten severely and left behind. They meet Marcus at the station, or they don’t, because Millicent’s parents don’t like their nephew enough to meet him anywhere, and Millicent watches the two boys disappear from sight. Alexander ducks into the carriage as soon as he boards, but as the train disappears into the valley, Marcus is still hanging out the window, waving goodbye.
:::
Millicent receives six hundred and seventeen letters from Marcus, almost one every day, throughout his first five years of Hogwarts. She only receives one from her brother, who begs off on the holidays, claiming to be too busy to write. The first time he does this, she calmly says, “I’m six, not stupid,” and walks away. She stops writing him letters after that and tries not to scream when Lucien gets a letter sealed with the Bulstrode family crest once a week. She knows she’s just a girl, but she doesn’t understand why that means she can’t be Alexander’s favorite.
:::
“Dear Millicent,
If you ever act like these debased slags in Slytherin, I will destroy you.
Regards,
Your Brother,
Alexander Abraxus Bulstrode II”
It is probably the nicest thing her brother’s ever said to her, because in his own sick way, he is offering her protection. Alexander isn’t the type of person to feel loyalty lightly, and although she never turns to him for help, even after being attacked in fourth year, Millicent has heeded this warning every day of her life. Therefore, she is one of the few Slytherin women to garner respect from Gryffindor women and Hufflepuff virgins.
:::
When they celebrate Christmas with Mother’s side of the family in the winter of Alexander’s third year, she is the only Bulstrode happy to see Marcus. Alexander ignores his housemate, as he has his entire life, and Lucien is only too happy to be his older brother’s sole source of entertainment. Their neglect doesn’t matter, however, as the moment Marcus sees his nine year old cousin he picks her up, throws her over his shoulder, and takes her out back to teach her how to fly. It’s then that Millicent realizes she doesn’t want to be Alexander’s favorite any more.
:::
Lucien is a much better letter writer than Alexander. When he starts school three weeks before Millicent’s tenth birthday, she doesn’t expect anything more than a few letters scattered over the months of separation ahead. Even though he worships Alexander, Millicent knows Lucien loves her best, so she expects him to write. What she doesn’t expect is for him to write almost as routinely as Marcus does, without the stiff formality her cousin assumes in order to get the owls past her father. It’s these letters that make her stay with Lucien, years later, after everyone else has abandoned him.
:::
Being left alone with her parents is one of the scariest experiences of Millicent’s life. Her brothers are no longer there to stop her from exploring. She finds three torture chambers, one of which still stinks of rotting food, flesh, and feces. She sees her mother without glamour charms for the first time in late November, and is only slightly shocked by the deformations on her mother’s face from the countless beatings inflicted by Mr. Bulstrode. She is terrifyingly scarred when she finds her father shagging a corpse, however, as there’s only so much a ten year old can take.
:::
She doesn’t tell either of her brothers what she’s seen, as both have warned her time and time again not to go off searching through the Manor, especially before noon. It’s Marcus she confides in. They spend the summer before she starts Hogwarts together, with Marcus telling her all the secrets of Hogwarts castle while she tells him all the horrors of her home. It’s his birthday when she finally gets up the courage to ask, “Why don’t Mother and Father like you?”
She’s expecting him to lie, but he doesn’t. “My father killed my mother and then killed himself.”
:::
He doesn’t tell her more than that. Not when she gets to Hogwarts, not after the War, not after she graduates. She finds out through Alexander, who sits her down the night she’s sorted and explains their family history. He tells her about Aunt Mildred’s death at the hands of her half-troll husband and about Father’s need to go to Germany to find a wife because no respectable British witch would marry him. She listens with rapt attention and tries to ignore the hunger in her brother’s eyes as he recounts the violence. She fears for what he will become.
:::
The first person she makes friends with at Hogwarts is Blaise Zabini. The other kids seem to have known each other since birth, but as Mrs. Bulstrode refused to leave her home unless necessary, socializing the children hadn’t been a major priority. Blaise has just arrived from Italy and is fluent in English, German, Italian, and French. They spend their afternoons doing homework and their evenings hunched together in the back of the common room practicing different languages. Blaise promises to whisk her away to the continent one day, and Millicent can’t stop herself from believing in something for once.
:::
The first girl she has a conversation with is Padma Patil. Padma is a Ravenclaw and a half-blood, so Millicent is wary of her from the very beginning. It takes three weeks for her to work up the courage to talk to the Indian girl, but when she does, she decides it was worth it. “Hey,” she greets, picking up the quill that Padma has just dropped on the floor, “I’m Millicent.” Padma smiles at her openly, something Millicent’s never seen before, and thanks her twice before asking about Millicent’s classes. For some reason, Millicent doesn’t mind the small talk.
:::
It takes her until the middle of October to say something to any of the girls in her dorm. Pansy’s being completely heartless, because Pansy’s always being completely heartless, and poor Tracey Davis is cowering in the corner like a kicked kneazle. Finding the backbone Marcus forced into her, Millicent draws herself up to her full height and tells Pansy to bugger off. Pansy stops ranting about Tracey’s blood status and calls Millicent something along the lines of “fat cow” before storming off to the common room, Daphne and Liliana at her heels. Millicent leaves before Tracey can make friends.
:::
“Why do you antagonize her so?” Marcus asks, in February, after Millicent’s pushed Pansy into the snow. She’s serving detention tonight and tomorrow for it, as McGonagall chose that exact moment to walk past. “We all know she’s right evil, Millicent, there’s no need to attack her.”
She shrugs before giving an answer, her eyes glued to the fire behind Marcus’ head. She doesn’t want to have this conversation right now, or ever. “Because someone has to,” she concedes, after a moment, “Someone needs to fight when no one else will.”
Marcus rolls his eyes. “You sound like a Gryffindor.”
:::
There are many other times in her life in which Millicent is told she’s better suited for the House of Scarlet and Gold. The next time is during her first run in with Adrian Pucey, Marcus’ best friend and Lucien’s least favorite person. She’s out flying after hours and he walks onto the pitch just as she’s packing up her things. “Breaking school rules is for Gryffindors, Bulstrode,” he tells her, taking his own broom off his shoulders.
She smirks, “What about you?”
There’s silence, a look of longing in Adrian’s eyes, and then “It’s in my blood, I guess.”
:::
There are whispers, when Potter gets back from the Infirmary, whispers of ghosts and insanity and, from Alexander, Voldemort. The name strikes fear in Millicent’s heart, because she knows what will happen if it really is Voldemort. These rumors stay buried in the dungeons, while the rest of the school writes Quirrell off as a quack and carries on obliviously. But Millicent notices Alexander’s new found fervor for dark magic and Lucien’s surfacing addiction to their father’s potion making. Worse, still, is the fear etched into Marcus’ features. She tries hard to believe she’s paranoid, but she knows she isn’t.
:::
The summer passes in peace, and Millicent slowly relaxes into the droll, hot months that stretch before her. There are no letters from Marcus to keep her company, and Blaise is not permitted near the house, for Mrs. Bulstrode fears his mother will seduce her husband. Millicent thinks it’s a ridiculous idea, but Blaise accepts the answer and doesn’t push. She would find it strange, if she took the time to analyze a Slytherin’s motives, but she’s learned early in life not to bother herself with such a task. The summer passes calmly, and yet, Millicent is drowning in fear.
:::
No one talks in the Slytherin common room the night of the first attack. Those from “good” families keep throwing looks of distaste at her, her brothers, and Malfoy, while those who were loyal to Voldemort fight back the fear and keep their faces cold. Until someone figures out what’s happening, it seems pointless to panic.
Still, Millicent remembers the stories Oma tells, ones filled with giant snakes and mudbloods, and she cannot help but wonder if her father has a hand in this. She doesn’t ask Lucien, because he wouldn’t know, and she doesn’t ask Alexander, because he would.
:::
Daphne Greengrass is everything Millicent isn’t. She’s blonde and lithe, with the most beautiful blue eyes that mirror the color of the Scottish sky after a snowstorm. She wears the most fashionable robes and does her hair up in twisted, complicated buns Millicent is sure take just as long to take out as they do to put in. So when the girl walks up to her in November and says, “I’m so sick of Parkinson and her pack of hens. Would you like to get breakfast with me?” Millicent chokes on whatever reply she had and simply nods her head.
:::
The Greengrasses are from the very best of families, and they are one of the few Slytherin families not to have been connected with Voldemort in any way, shape, or form. Millicent clings to Daphne like she’s an angel come from Heaven, and the two girls create their own circle of friends, consisting of Blaise, Theodore Nott, Marcus, and Adrian Pucey. Although Millicent rarely talks to Nott, and only she and Marcus ever really converse with Pucey, the four younger members create a bond tight enough to see them through the next five years, and the rest of their lives.
:::
“What does it mean?” she asks Marcus one night, after they’ve been informed of the Granger girl being petrified.
Marcus looks at her with something like contempt in his eyes, and she reels back as if physically slapped. His gaze calms, after a moment, and he gives her a small, crooked smile before saying, “It means your father’s figured out how to do the one thing we all thought would be impossible.”
She doesn’t need to ask what, as she’s already figured it out. For the past eleven years, all her father’s ever talked about is Voldemort and his Resurrection.
:::
“Is father going to try again?” she asks this of Lucien on the train ride home. If the Ministry arrested her father, they would surely know about it, wouldn’t they? Lucien simply rolls his eyes, a deep, long gesture that screams “You’re just a child, Millicent, stop asking these questions.” So she does. She leaves him alone in his compartment and makes her way to the back of the train, were Marcus is having sex with a girl he probably can’t name and looking at her through the window with empty eyes.
It’s probably best if she stops asking questions.
:::
“There’s something wrong with him,” Daphne says this after their first Defense class, and Millicent thinks it’s a bit early to pass judgment, but she’s inclined to agree. There’s something unnatural about the hollow look in Lupin’s eyes and the way he moves his fingers across the desk, like they are weapons instead of calloused magical instruments.
She doesn’t say any of this. She just shrugs her shoulders and shovels more peas onto Daphne’s plate. She definitely doesn’t eat enough. Daphne envies Millicent’s already-showing curves, but in a few years Millicent knows she’ll be in the shadows of Daphne’s charms.
:::
She isn’t surprised to find that her boggart is her father. Luckily, the only person capable of making the connection is Draco Malfoy, and for once in his life, he keeps quiet. Professor Lupin looks vaguely surprised as well, but she doesn’t dwell on that very long. The moment class is dismissed she catches up with Malfoy and asks why he didn’t say anything.
“I thought I would see my father too,” he confides, after making sure no one else is around, “I know how you feel.” After a moment, Millicent realizes that Malfoy had never actually faced the boggart.
:::
When Sirius Black attacks, there are only a handful of people who are not afraid. This includes the Bulstrode family, Marcus, Malfoy, Theodore Nott, and Blaise. They know that Black was never a part of Voldemort’s circles, even the outermost ones. Millicent pulls her pillow close to Blaise’s head. “Why would he come here?” she asks, her voice laced with sleep and curiosity. There’s no fear. Even at thirteen, she knows death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to someone. If Black’s going to kill them, then there isn’t much she can do.
There’s not much anyone can do.
:::
There is tangible fear rolling off her brother in waves. She, Lucien, and Blaise are sitting in the back of the train. Blaise stares blankly out the window, drumming his left hand against the pane, as if waiting for something. Millicent’s afraid to ask what. Lucien is unnaturally quiet, a letter from Alexander gripped tightly in his hands. Millicent’s afraid to ask what the letter contains. She feels terrified for reasons she cannot explain, reasons no one else seems to want to name. She can feel the world turn on its axis, but she doesn’t know what it’s turning towards.
:::
For an entire year, there is nothing. The world seems to be holding its breath. Lucien refuses to talk to her, her mother is pregnant again, and Blaise’s mother is getting remarried. Everything seems too natural, too normal, and Millicent wakes up each morning choking on the stagnant air. Every child of a Death Eater is trying harder and harder to act normal. Instead they’re appearing more and more fake. So when Blaise invites her to the Yule Ball, she says yes, because she needs something to break the standstill she’s been living in. Besides, she’s always loved to dance.
:::
“Going to the Ball was a bad idea,” she thinks, as she’s trapped between an unbearably large man and a stone wall. She’s pretty sure the man’s name is Higgs, as Marcus has mentioned his name at least twice before. He hits her, hard, and fumbles with the buckle on his robes. He’s too drunk to open them easily, and as he wraps his hand around her neck to keep her steady, there’s a loud curse that echoes down the hall. Higgs falls limp at her feet and Blaise runs up to her, the anger rolling off him in waves.
:::
She’s half-expecting it to be Marcus who finds them, even if he hasn’t set foot in Hogwarts in over six months. Her robes are torn in all the wrong places and Blaise is running out of Healing charms. She’s been beaten by her father a hundred times, but this is different. This was someone she didn’t know, someone she’d never even spoken to. She bites back the impulse to cry when she notices the shadow approaching her and hears the clang of boots on the floor. “Millicent?” Pucey’s voice rings out through the dungeons. She remembers then how to breathe.
:::
“When he left, Marcus told me to keep an eye on you,” Adrian explains as he carries her back to the common room, “You can imagine Jae wasn’t very happy about that.” Jaelyn Pritchard isn’t very fond of Millicent. She thinks the younger girl is a bad representation of Slytherin and can’t believe Millicent and Marcus are related. “The last few months, you were fine. I thought you’d be okay without anyone.” He watches as she sits properly on the sofa, refusing to let anyone else see her pain, “You’re so bloody strong, Millicent, but you’re still just a kid.”
:::
She doesn’t feel like much of a kid. She feels numb and empty, like something’s been ripped from her. For three days, she doesn’t say a word to anyone. Then she writes her silence off as pubescent. “It’s not like he got what he wanted,” she tells Blaise, when he tells her she should tell Snape. The dark Italian boy comforts her as best he can, which means giving her boxes upon boxes of chocolate filled with liquor and going into expansive detail about the three women he shagged in the shadows at the Yule Ball. She immediately feels better.
:::
A part of her expects Marcus to come to the school after Winter holidays, up in arms and threatening Snape. Marcus is nothing if not painfully loyal, especially when it comes to the few people he actually considers family. “Who the bloody fuck did this to you, Millicent?” he asks, for what feels like the thousandth time. Millicent keeps her eyes steely and cold while Adrian stands in the doorway, making sure Marcus doesn’t leave. The two of them know Marcus better than anyone else in the world, and because of that, they are about terribly afraid for Higgs’ life.
::
Jaelyn begs off from the last Hogsmeade visit of the year, claiming she needs to spend time with her cousin before his final task. Millicent doesn’t tell Adrian that Jaelyn and Cedric are related only through marriage, as that would be rude and she has a feeling he already knows. The two of them have a very complex relationship, in which Jaelyn does whatever she wants and Adrian maintains an air of nonchalance. It isn’t love, even if they choose to call it that, and it’s their relationship that stops her starting anything with Blaise. She wants more than that.
:::
“Millicent!” Padma Patil exclaims as the older Slytherin shimmies into the seat next to her. They’ve spoken, sparingly, over the years, and Millicent knows that Padma’s probably the only Ravenclaw in the world she’ll ever be able to have a conversation with. “What a pleasant surprise. Are you here to watch the final task?” There’s genuine curiosity in the Ravenclaw’s voice so Millicent bites back her sarcastic remark and simply nods her head. “Oh I do hope Harry Potter wins. Who do you have your money on?”
“Krum, of course,” she says, although, secretly, she wants Potter to win, too.
:::
“Oh,” Padma’s injured sound makes Millicent’s attention revert back to her, as she’s spent most of the final task watching whatever girl is in Blaise’s lap and deciding whether or not the blonde is good enough for him, “Oh, Millicent look!” there isn’t actual fear in Padma’s voice, as Millicent doubts the girl know how to be afraid, but Millicent looks and finds a lifeless Diggory at the bottom of the bleachers, being held by a sobbing Potter. A Slytherin would’ve left the body, she knows, and it’s in that moment that she realizes she needs to marry a Gryffindor.
:::
The Ministry refuses to believe it, but Millicent and her brothers can’t. Alexander is given the Mark at the end of June and Lucien receives it on his seventeenth birthday in July. Millicent isn’t asked, as her mother dies in childbirth and Millicent is forced to take on the role of mother to the newly born Perseus. Her father almost refuses to allow her to return to school, but Lucien intervenes on her behalf and explains that both Bulstrodes need to return in order to keep off suspicion. It’s one of four times in which Millicent really loves her brother.
:::
It takes her until the end of August to realize that her father is performing experiments on her baby brother, and a part of her wonders if that was the entire reason for Perseus’ birth. The idea that Mr. Bulstrode would create life for the sole purpose of destroying it may sound foreign to some, but it sounds completely logical to Millicent, who realizes she is only just beginning to understand how cruel her father can be. She has an overwhelming need to stay home, to care for Perseus and keep him alive for as long as she possibly can.
:::
“Keeping him alive means Father will keep experimenting on him,” Lucien tells her two weeks before their due back at Hogwarts, “It’s the worst form of torture you can inflict on him.” In the past two months, Lucien’s started talking to her more. When Lucien comes back from Voldemort’s missions, bleeding and bruised, she’s the one to draw a bath and tend to his injuries. Father ignores them both now, spending hours holed up in his study with Alexander, and Millicent cannot decide if the neglect is better than the abuse.
At least before, she knew what he was thinking.
:::
It’s strange that Malfoy is the first to approach her, in so much as it’s not. He’s holding a wrapped present with the words To Perseus written in what has to be his mother’s handwriting, as she knows his and she knows it is not this neat. “For the child,” Malfoy explains, carefully giving her the package, “As you didn’t have a birthing party for him.”
Millicent allows a sad smile to grace her lips, as she doesn’t have the energy for much else these days. “It seemed pointless,” she admits, taking the package, “As he’ll be dead soon, anyway.”
:::
The important thing to remember is that she’s always hated Draco Malfoy. She doesn’t know why, but she blames it on his arrogance, his whining, and his omnipresent fear, which can be suffocating, at times. While most of the Slytherin house maintains a facade of indifference, Malfoy broads more than ever. If the Ministry truly believed, the entire Malfoy family would be in Azkaban based solely on the behavior of their only heir. It sickens her to see a Slytherin as weak as he is, and she would tell him to join the Hufflepuffs, if she thought they’d take him.
:::
She hates Umbridge, but not joining the Inquisitorial Squad would mean raising suspicion, so she joins and mocks it, along with Pucey and Nott, in the quiet hours before dawn, when everything seems like it could start all over again, from the beginning. “You ever feel like we could break free?” Millicent asks Pucey, one night, after Nott’s gone up to bed. Adrian simply shrugs his shoulders and offers a consolatory prize. “You forget I come from Gryffindors, Millicent. I’ve got nothing to be breaking free of.” He looks almost sad, and she wonders which of them will fall first.
:::
“Did you hear?” Malfoy asks her after Potions, his eyes deep with worry, “They’ve started the Order back up.” It’s a myth, this Order of the Phoenix that her father used to tell her about. No one would have been stupid enough to stand against Voldemort at the height of his power. Random coincidences don’t mean there’s a connection, and she refuses to believe that Dumbledore was foolish enough to send teenagers into a War.
“Stop listening to bogeyman stories, Malfoy,” she warns him, patronizingly, before rushing to catch up with Blaise. She doesn’t want to think about hope today.
:::
When they find “Dumbledore’s Army,” Millicent is physically ill. If Dumbledore was raising an army within the school, then surely he could send graduates out to fight the Dark Lord. She’s always respected Dumbledore, up to this point, and it hurts to know that even he can be manipulative, that even he can betray.
Pucey buys her alcohol and Blaise gets her Italian chocolate. She feels like the entire world’s crashed down on her and she knows she cannot stand alone beneath this weight. The only problem is, Marcus is gone, Adrian’s leaving, so Blaise is all she has left.
:::
Except, maybe Nott. They don’t speak much, as Nott doesn’t speak much to anyone, but when they do, it always feels like he knows exactly what she’s saying. They go to Pucey’s wedding together, as Blaise is in Italy and Daphne hates parties. He twirls her around the dance floor with practiced ease and tells her she looks beautiful while the rest of the world calls her fat.
She’s fifteen and she loses her virginity and, for a moment, that’s all there is. No war, no Voldemort, just the aching pain between her legs and the look on Theodore’s face.
:::
Daphne stops talking to her for the entirety of the summer. She cannot believe that her best friend would shag the boy she’s infatuated with, and Millicent cannot apologize for something she wanted to do. So the two girls find themselves at a hostile standstill. As Theodore leaves for Wales that morning and Blaise isn’t due back from Italy until the night before school begins, Millicent spends the summer before sixth year alone. She takes care of Perseus, writes letters to Marcus every morning, and tries to ignore the feeling in her gut that screams “This is much too normal.”
:::
She’s never actually met Emmeline Vance, but she knows the name. When she reads about her death in the obituary section, a piece of her dies inside. She writes to Marcus, who’s playing in Italy that week, but he returns to London before the owl is sent.
Two days later, in an attempt to murder Amelia Bones, Alexander Bulstrode is killed, along with several other young followers. It’s Yaxley who ends up killing the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Voldemort dedicates Bones’ death to the Bulstrode family, but even Mr. Bulstrode knows that this is not enough.
:::
The funeral is a somber event. There are nine people in attendance. The four remaining Bulstrodes, Marcus, Alexander’s fiancée Elisabetta Rosier, two junior Death Eaters, and Emory Yaxley, the man who killed Amelia Bones. There are no flowers thrown on the grave, no eulogies for a boy who had not yet grown into a man. Millicent whispers words of regret to the corpse of a brother she barely knew and tries to offer his cold frame some form of redemption, even though she knows his soul is too far gone. Marcus pulls her away as she ignores her aching pain.
:::
“I’m sorry,” Blaise tells her when she boards the train. It’s the first time he’s ever apologized for anything, and she knows he means it more than he’s meant anything in his entire life. She offers him a broken half smile that most Slytherins would have mocked and sits across from Theodore in the compartment closest to the conductor. There are no words spoken between her and the man who took her innocence. There is only the warm touch of his hand, the solidness of his shoulder beneath her head, and an unspoken promise that they’ll live through this.
Hopefully.
:::
Death becomes a familiar face sooner than anyone expects. The obituary section of the Daily Prophet now takes up six pages, and this is after the Ministry bans mentioning the deaths of children. Malfoy looks more pompous than ever before, but Theodore tells her that he whimpers in his sleep. Pansy boasts of how well her father’s connected within Voldemort’s circles and Tracey Davis tells them she’s the second cousin of Rodolphus Lestrange.
Millicent knows her father is better connected than any of them, but she doesn’t see the point in bragging about the dirtiest thing her family ever did.
:::
She isn’t entirely sure what Theodore means to her, except that she knows she isn’t in love with him, so she doesn’t see the point in keeping him tied to her. It’s a good thing, because the moment she lets go of Theodore, Daphne starts talking to her again, and Millicent’s missed the distraction the blonde witch provides.
They talk about OWLs scores and dress robes and how good of a shag Blaise probably is. It’s mindless, but it means Millicent can avoid conversations about her father’s involvement, or Lucien’s new scars, or how Perseus doesn’t even look human now.
::
Rating: High PG-13
Characters: Adrian Pucey, Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, Alexander Bulstrode, Lucien Bulstrode, Marcus Flint, and Millicent Bulstrode
Pairings: Adrian Pucey/Millicent Bulstrode, Blaise Zabini/Millicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott/Millicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott/Daphne Greengrass, Marcus Flint/Katie Bell
Era: 1980-1998
Word Count: 10,000
Story Summary: Millicent's life, from the beginning, to an end, and to another beginning.
To be honest, Millicent thinks the only reason her parents didn’t kill her as a child is the fact that she didn’t cry. While all of her brothers cried something awful as children, according to Marcus, who has never falsified his information, Millicent only screamed when she was angry and never shed a tear. Her father boasts about this to his friends well into her teenage years, and she blushes under the praise instead of feeling embarrassed, as it is one of the few times she knows her father remembers she exists.
She is eighteen the first time she cries.
:::
Her earliest memory of Marcus is her fifth birthday. She’s standing outside on the balcony with her older brothers, Alexander and Lucien, watching the sunset and ignoring her guests. Marcus comes outside just as the top of the sun disappears behind the far away trees. He’s ten, the same age as Alexander, but when he smiles at her it doesn’t feel patronizing and when she tells him about the Faerie Queen carrying the sun, he doesn’t tell her to stop believing in fairy tales. He simply nods his head and agrees before pulling Alexander back inside, where everything feels dead.
:::
The following year, Alexander and Marcus go off to school. The Bulstrodes are late getting to the train station because Lucien doesn’t want Alexander to leave and throws a fit in the middle of the kitchen, so he’s beaten severely and left behind. They meet Marcus at the station, or they don’t, because Millicent’s parents don’t like their nephew enough to meet him anywhere, and Millicent watches the two boys disappear from sight. Alexander ducks into the carriage as soon as he boards, but as the train disappears into the valley, Marcus is still hanging out the window, waving goodbye.
:::
Millicent receives six hundred and seventeen letters from Marcus, almost one every day, throughout his first five years of Hogwarts. She only receives one from her brother, who begs off on the holidays, claiming to be too busy to write. The first time he does this, she calmly says, “I’m six, not stupid,” and walks away. She stops writing him letters after that and tries not to scream when Lucien gets a letter sealed with the Bulstrode family crest once a week. She knows she’s just a girl, but she doesn’t understand why that means she can’t be Alexander’s favorite.
:::
“Dear Millicent,
If you ever act like these debased slags in Slytherin, I will destroy you.
Regards,
Your Brother,
Alexander Abraxus Bulstrode II”
It is probably the nicest thing her brother’s ever said to her, because in his own sick way, he is offering her protection. Alexander isn’t the type of person to feel loyalty lightly, and although she never turns to him for help, even after being attacked in fourth year, Millicent has heeded this warning every day of her life. Therefore, she is one of the few Slytherin women to garner respect from Gryffindor women and Hufflepuff virgins.
:::
When they celebrate Christmas with Mother’s side of the family in the winter of Alexander’s third year, she is the only Bulstrode happy to see Marcus. Alexander ignores his housemate, as he has his entire life, and Lucien is only too happy to be his older brother’s sole source of entertainment. Their neglect doesn’t matter, however, as the moment Marcus sees his nine year old cousin he picks her up, throws her over his shoulder, and takes her out back to teach her how to fly. It’s then that Millicent realizes she doesn’t want to be Alexander’s favorite any more.
:::
Lucien is a much better letter writer than Alexander. When he starts school three weeks before Millicent’s tenth birthday, she doesn’t expect anything more than a few letters scattered over the months of separation ahead. Even though he worships Alexander, Millicent knows Lucien loves her best, so she expects him to write. What she doesn’t expect is for him to write almost as routinely as Marcus does, without the stiff formality her cousin assumes in order to get the owls past her father. It’s these letters that make her stay with Lucien, years later, after everyone else has abandoned him.
:::
Being left alone with her parents is one of the scariest experiences of Millicent’s life. Her brothers are no longer there to stop her from exploring. She finds three torture chambers, one of which still stinks of rotting food, flesh, and feces. She sees her mother without glamour charms for the first time in late November, and is only slightly shocked by the deformations on her mother’s face from the countless beatings inflicted by Mr. Bulstrode. She is terrifyingly scarred when she finds her father shagging a corpse, however, as there’s only so much a ten year old can take.
:::
She doesn’t tell either of her brothers what she’s seen, as both have warned her time and time again not to go off searching through the Manor, especially before noon. It’s Marcus she confides in. They spend the summer before she starts Hogwarts together, with Marcus telling her all the secrets of Hogwarts castle while she tells him all the horrors of her home. It’s his birthday when she finally gets up the courage to ask, “Why don’t Mother and Father like you?”
She’s expecting him to lie, but he doesn’t. “My father killed my mother and then killed himself.”
:::
He doesn’t tell her more than that. Not when she gets to Hogwarts, not after the War, not after she graduates. She finds out through Alexander, who sits her down the night she’s sorted and explains their family history. He tells her about Aunt Mildred’s death at the hands of her half-troll husband and about Father’s need to go to Germany to find a wife because no respectable British witch would marry him. She listens with rapt attention and tries to ignore the hunger in her brother’s eyes as he recounts the violence. She fears for what he will become.
:::
The first person she makes friends with at Hogwarts is Blaise Zabini. The other kids seem to have known each other since birth, but as Mrs. Bulstrode refused to leave her home unless necessary, socializing the children hadn’t been a major priority. Blaise has just arrived from Italy and is fluent in English, German, Italian, and French. They spend their afternoons doing homework and their evenings hunched together in the back of the common room practicing different languages. Blaise promises to whisk her away to the continent one day, and Millicent can’t stop herself from believing in something for once.
:::
The first girl she has a conversation with is Padma Patil. Padma is a Ravenclaw and a half-blood, so Millicent is wary of her from the very beginning. It takes three weeks for her to work up the courage to talk to the Indian girl, but when she does, she decides it was worth it. “Hey,” she greets, picking up the quill that Padma has just dropped on the floor, “I’m Millicent.” Padma smiles at her openly, something Millicent’s never seen before, and thanks her twice before asking about Millicent’s classes. For some reason, Millicent doesn’t mind the small talk.
:::
It takes her until the middle of October to say something to any of the girls in her dorm. Pansy’s being completely heartless, because Pansy’s always being completely heartless, and poor Tracey Davis is cowering in the corner like a kicked kneazle. Finding the backbone Marcus forced into her, Millicent draws herself up to her full height and tells Pansy to bugger off. Pansy stops ranting about Tracey’s blood status and calls Millicent something along the lines of “fat cow” before storming off to the common room, Daphne and Liliana at her heels. Millicent leaves before Tracey can make friends.
:::
“Why do you antagonize her so?” Marcus asks, in February, after Millicent’s pushed Pansy into the snow. She’s serving detention tonight and tomorrow for it, as McGonagall chose that exact moment to walk past. “We all know she’s right evil, Millicent, there’s no need to attack her.”
She shrugs before giving an answer, her eyes glued to the fire behind Marcus’ head. She doesn’t want to have this conversation right now, or ever. “Because someone has to,” she concedes, after a moment, “Someone needs to fight when no one else will.”
Marcus rolls his eyes. “You sound like a Gryffindor.”
:::
There are many other times in her life in which Millicent is told she’s better suited for the House of Scarlet and Gold. The next time is during her first run in with Adrian Pucey, Marcus’ best friend and Lucien’s least favorite person. She’s out flying after hours and he walks onto the pitch just as she’s packing up her things. “Breaking school rules is for Gryffindors, Bulstrode,” he tells her, taking his own broom off his shoulders.
She smirks, “What about you?”
There’s silence, a look of longing in Adrian’s eyes, and then “It’s in my blood, I guess.”
:::
There are whispers, when Potter gets back from the Infirmary, whispers of ghosts and insanity and, from Alexander, Voldemort. The name strikes fear in Millicent’s heart, because she knows what will happen if it really is Voldemort. These rumors stay buried in the dungeons, while the rest of the school writes Quirrell off as a quack and carries on obliviously. But Millicent notices Alexander’s new found fervor for dark magic and Lucien’s surfacing addiction to their father’s potion making. Worse, still, is the fear etched into Marcus’ features. She tries hard to believe she’s paranoid, but she knows she isn’t.
:::
The summer passes in peace, and Millicent slowly relaxes into the droll, hot months that stretch before her. There are no letters from Marcus to keep her company, and Blaise is not permitted near the house, for Mrs. Bulstrode fears his mother will seduce her husband. Millicent thinks it’s a ridiculous idea, but Blaise accepts the answer and doesn’t push. She would find it strange, if she took the time to analyze a Slytherin’s motives, but she’s learned early in life not to bother herself with such a task. The summer passes calmly, and yet, Millicent is drowning in fear.
:::
No one talks in the Slytherin common room the night of the first attack. Those from “good” families keep throwing looks of distaste at her, her brothers, and Malfoy, while those who were loyal to Voldemort fight back the fear and keep their faces cold. Until someone figures out what’s happening, it seems pointless to panic.
Still, Millicent remembers the stories Oma tells, ones filled with giant snakes and mudbloods, and she cannot help but wonder if her father has a hand in this. She doesn’t ask Lucien, because he wouldn’t know, and she doesn’t ask Alexander, because he would.
:::
Daphne Greengrass is everything Millicent isn’t. She’s blonde and lithe, with the most beautiful blue eyes that mirror the color of the Scottish sky after a snowstorm. She wears the most fashionable robes and does her hair up in twisted, complicated buns Millicent is sure take just as long to take out as they do to put in. So when the girl walks up to her in November and says, “I’m so sick of Parkinson and her pack of hens. Would you like to get breakfast with me?” Millicent chokes on whatever reply she had and simply nods her head.
:::
The Greengrasses are from the very best of families, and they are one of the few Slytherin families not to have been connected with Voldemort in any way, shape, or form. Millicent clings to Daphne like she’s an angel come from Heaven, and the two girls create their own circle of friends, consisting of Blaise, Theodore Nott, Marcus, and Adrian Pucey. Although Millicent rarely talks to Nott, and only she and Marcus ever really converse with Pucey, the four younger members create a bond tight enough to see them through the next five years, and the rest of their lives.
:::
“What does it mean?” she asks Marcus one night, after they’ve been informed of the Granger girl being petrified.
Marcus looks at her with something like contempt in his eyes, and she reels back as if physically slapped. His gaze calms, after a moment, and he gives her a small, crooked smile before saying, “It means your father’s figured out how to do the one thing we all thought would be impossible.”
She doesn’t need to ask what, as she’s already figured it out. For the past eleven years, all her father’s ever talked about is Voldemort and his Resurrection.
:::
“Is father going to try again?” she asks this of Lucien on the train ride home. If the Ministry arrested her father, they would surely know about it, wouldn’t they? Lucien simply rolls his eyes, a deep, long gesture that screams “You’re just a child, Millicent, stop asking these questions.” So she does. She leaves him alone in his compartment and makes her way to the back of the train, were Marcus is having sex with a girl he probably can’t name and looking at her through the window with empty eyes.
It’s probably best if she stops asking questions.
:::
“There’s something wrong with him,” Daphne says this after their first Defense class, and Millicent thinks it’s a bit early to pass judgment, but she’s inclined to agree. There’s something unnatural about the hollow look in Lupin’s eyes and the way he moves his fingers across the desk, like they are weapons instead of calloused magical instruments.
She doesn’t say any of this. She just shrugs her shoulders and shovels more peas onto Daphne’s plate. She definitely doesn’t eat enough. Daphne envies Millicent’s already-showing curves, but in a few years Millicent knows she’ll be in the shadows of Daphne’s charms.
:::
She isn’t surprised to find that her boggart is her father. Luckily, the only person capable of making the connection is Draco Malfoy, and for once in his life, he keeps quiet. Professor Lupin looks vaguely surprised as well, but she doesn’t dwell on that very long. The moment class is dismissed she catches up with Malfoy and asks why he didn’t say anything.
“I thought I would see my father too,” he confides, after making sure no one else is around, “I know how you feel.” After a moment, Millicent realizes that Malfoy had never actually faced the boggart.
:::
When Sirius Black attacks, there are only a handful of people who are not afraid. This includes the Bulstrode family, Marcus, Malfoy, Theodore Nott, and Blaise. They know that Black was never a part of Voldemort’s circles, even the outermost ones. Millicent pulls her pillow close to Blaise’s head. “Why would he come here?” she asks, her voice laced with sleep and curiosity. There’s no fear. Even at thirteen, she knows death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to someone. If Black’s going to kill them, then there isn’t much she can do.
There’s not much anyone can do.
:::
There is tangible fear rolling off her brother in waves. She, Lucien, and Blaise are sitting in the back of the train. Blaise stares blankly out the window, drumming his left hand against the pane, as if waiting for something. Millicent’s afraid to ask what. Lucien is unnaturally quiet, a letter from Alexander gripped tightly in his hands. Millicent’s afraid to ask what the letter contains. She feels terrified for reasons she cannot explain, reasons no one else seems to want to name. She can feel the world turn on its axis, but she doesn’t know what it’s turning towards.
:::
For an entire year, there is nothing. The world seems to be holding its breath. Lucien refuses to talk to her, her mother is pregnant again, and Blaise’s mother is getting remarried. Everything seems too natural, too normal, and Millicent wakes up each morning choking on the stagnant air. Every child of a Death Eater is trying harder and harder to act normal. Instead they’re appearing more and more fake. So when Blaise invites her to the Yule Ball, she says yes, because she needs something to break the standstill she’s been living in. Besides, she’s always loved to dance.
:::
“Going to the Ball was a bad idea,” she thinks, as she’s trapped between an unbearably large man and a stone wall. She’s pretty sure the man’s name is Higgs, as Marcus has mentioned his name at least twice before. He hits her, hard, and fumbles with the buckle on his robes. He’s too drunk to open them easily, and as he wraps his hand around her neck to keep her steady, there’s a loud curse that echoes down the hall. Higgs falls limp at her feet and Blaise runs up to her, the anger rolling off him in waves.
:::
She’s half-expecting it to be Marcus who finds them, even if he hasn’t set foot in Hogwarts in over six months. Her robes are torn in all the wrong places and Blaise is running out of Healing charms. She’s been beaten by her father a hundred times, but this is different. This was someone she didn’t know, someone she’d never even spoken to. She bites back the impulse to cry when she notices the shadow approaching her and hears the clang of boots on the floor. “Millicent?” Pucey’s voice rings out through the dungeons. She remembers then how to breathe.
:::
“When he left, Marcus told me to keep an eye on you,” Adrian explains as he carries her back to the common room, “You can imagine Jae wasn’t very happy about that.” Jaelyn Pritchard isn’t very fond of Millicent. She thinks the younger girl is a bad representation of Slytherin and can’t believe Millicent and Marcus are related. “The last few months, you were fine. I thought you’d be okay without anyone.” He watches as she sits properly on the sofa, refusing to let anyone else see her pain, “You’re so bloody strong, Millicent, but you’re still just a kid.”
:::
She doesn’t feel like much of a kid. She feels numb and empty, like something’s been ripped from her. For three days, she doesn’t say a word to anyone. Then she writes her silence off as pubescent. “It’s not like he got what he wanted,” she tells Blaise, when he tells her she should tell Snape. The dark Italian boy comforts her as best he can, which means giving her boxes upon boxes of chocolate filled with liquor and going into expansive detail about the three women he shagged in the shadows at the Yule Ball. She immediately feels better.
:::
A part of her expects Marcus to come to the school after Winter holidays, up in arms and threatening Snape. Marcus is nothing if not painfully loyal, especially when it comes to the few people he actually considers family. “Who the bloody fuck did this to you, Millicent?” he asks, for what feels like the thousandth time. Millicent keeps her eyes steely and cold while Adrian stands in the doorway, making sure Marcus doesn’t leave. The two of them know Marcus better than anyone else in the world, and because of that, they are about terribly afraid for Higgs’ life.
::
Jaelyn begs off from the last Hogsmeade visit of the year, claiming she needs to spend time with her cousin before his final task. Millicent doesn’t tell Adrian that Jaelyn and Cedric are related only through marriage, as that would be rude and she has a feeling he already knows. The two of them have a very complex relationship, in which Jaelyn does whatever she wants and Adrian maintains an air of nonchalance. It isn’t love, even if they choose to call it that, and it’s their relationship that stops her starting anything with Blaise. She wants more than that.
:::
“Millicent!” Padma Patil exclaims as the older Slytherin shimmies into the seat next to her. They’ve spoken, sparingly, over the years, and Millicent knows that Padma’s probably the only Ravenclaw in the world she’ll ever be able to have a conversation with. “What a pleasant surprise. Are you here to watch the final task?” There’s genuine curiosity in the Ravenclaw’s voice so Millicent bites back her sarcastic remark and simply nods her head. “Oh I do hope Harry Potter wins. Who do you have your money on?”
“Krum, of course,” she says, although, secretly, she wants Potter to win, too.
:::
“Oh,” Padma’s injured sound makes Millicent’s attention revert back to her, as she’s spent most of the final task watching whatever girl is in Blaise’s lap and deciding whether or not the blonde is good enough for him, “Oh, Millicent look!” there isn’t actual fear in Padma’s voice, as Millicent doubts the girl know how to be afraid, but Millicent looks and finds a lifeless Diggory at the bottom of the bleachers, being held by a sobbing Potter. A Slytherin would’ve left the body, she knows, and it’s in that moment that she realizes she needs to marry a Gryffindor.
:::
The Ministry refuses to believe it, but Millicent and her brothers can’t. Alexander is given the Mark at the end of June and Lucien receives it on his seventeenth birthday in July. Millicent isn’t asked, as her mother dies in childbirth and Millicent is forced to take on the role of mother to the newly born Perseus. Her father almost refuses to allow her to return to school, but Lucien intervenes on her behalf and explains that both Bulstrodes need to return in order to keep off suspicion. It’s one of four times in which Millicent really loves her brother.
:::
It takes her until the end of August to realize that her father is performing experiments on her baby brother, and a part of her wonders if that was the entire reason for Perseus’ birth. The idea that Mr. Bulstrode would create life for the sole purpose of destroying it may sound foreign to some, but it sounds completely logical to Millicent, who realizes she is only just beginning to understand how cruel her father can be. She has an overwhelming need to stay home, to care for Perseus and keep him alive for as long as she possibly can.
:::
“Keeping him alive means Father will keep experimenting on him,” Lucien tells her two weeks before their due back at Hogwarts, “It’s the worst form of torture you can inflict on him.” In the past two months, Lucien’s started talking to her more. When Lucien comes back from Voldemort’s missions, bleeding and bruised, she’s the one to draw a bath and tend to his injuries. Father ignores them both now, spending hours holed up in his study with Alexander, and Millicent cannot decide if the neglect is better than the abuse.
At least before, she knew what he was thinking.
:::
It’s strange that Malfoy is the first to approach her, in so much as it’s not. He’s holding a wrapped present with the words To Perseus written in what has to be his mother’s handwriting, as she knows his and she knows it is not this neat. “For the child,” Malfoy explains, carefully giving her the package, “As you didn’t have a birthing party for him.”
Millicent allows a sad smile to grace her lips, as she doesn’t have the energy for much else these days. “It seemed pointless,” she admits, taking the package, “As he’ll be dead soon, anyway.”
:::
The important thing to remember is that she’s always hated Draco Malfoy. She doesn’t know why, but she blames it on his arrogance, his whining, and his omnipresent fear, which can be suffocating, at times. While most of the Slytherin house maintains a facade of indifference, Malfoy broads more than ever. If the Ministry truly believed, the entire Malfoy family would be in Azkaban based solely on the behavior of their only heir. It sickens her to see a Slytherin as weak as he is, and she would tell him to join the Hufflepuffs, if she thought they’d take him.
:::
She hates Umbridge, but not joining the Inquisitorial Squad would mean raising suspicion, so she joins and mocks it, along with Pucey and Nott, in the quiet hours before dawn, when everything seems like it could start all over again, from the beginning. “You ever feel like we could break free?” Millicent asks Pucey, one night, after Nott’s gone up to bed. Adrian simply shrugs his shoulders and offers a consolatory prize. “You forget I come from Gryffindors, Millicent. I’ve got nothing to be breaking free of.” He looks almost sad, and she wonders which of them will fall first.
:::
“Did you hear?” Malfoy asks her after Potions, his eyes deep with worry, “They’ve started the Order back up.” It’s a myth, this Order of the Phoenix that her father used to tell her about. No one would have been stupid enough to stand against Voldemort at the height of his power. Random coincidences don’t mean there’s a connection, and she refuses to believe that Dumbledore was foolish enough to send teenagers into a War.
“Stop listening to bogeyman stories, Malfoy,” she warns him, patronizingly, before rushing to catch up with Blaise. She doesn’t want to think about hope today.
:::
When they find “Dumbledore’s Army,” Millicent is physically ill. If Dumbledore was raising an army within the school, then surely he could send graduates out to fight the Dark Lord. She’s always respected Dumbledore, up to this point, and it hurts to know that even he can be manipulative, that even he can betray.
Pucey buys her alcohol and Blaise gets her Italian chocolate. She feels like the entire world’s crashed down on her and she knows she cannot stand alone beneath this weight. The only problem is, Marcus is gone, Adrian’s leaving, so Blaise is all she has left.
:::
Except, maybe Nott. They don’t speak much, as Nott doesn’t speak much to anyone, but when they do, it always feels like he knows exactly what she’s saying. They go to Pucey’s wedding together, as Blaise is in Italy and Daphne hates parties. He twirls her around the dance floor with practiced ease and tells her she looks beautiful while the rest of the world calls her fat.
She’s fifteen and she loses her virginity and, for a moment, that’s all there is. No war, no Voldemort, just the aching pain between her legs and the look on Theodore’s face.
:::
Daphne stops talking to her for the entirety of the summer. She cannot believe that her best friend would shag the boy she’s infatuated with, and Millicent cannot apologize for something she wanted to do. So the two girls find themselves at a hostile standstill. As Theodore leaves for Wales that morning and Blaise isn’t due back from Italy until the night before school begins, Millicent spends the summer before sixth year alone. She takes care of Perseus, writes letters to Marcus every morning, and tries to ignore the feeling in her gut that screams “This is much too normal.”
:::
She’s never actually met Emmeline Vance, but she knows the name. When she reads about her death in the obituary section, a piece of her dies inside. She writes to Marcus, who’s playing in Italy that week, but he returns to London before the owl is sent.
Two days later, in an attempt to murder Amelia Bones, Alexander Bulstrode is killed, along with several other young followers. It’s Yaxley who ends up killing the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Voldemort dedicates Bones’ death to the Bulstrode family, but even Mr. Bulstrode knows that this is not enough.
:::
The funeral is a somber event. There are nine people in attendance. The four remaining Bulstrodes, Marcus, Alexander’s fiancée Elisabetta Rosier, two junior Death Eaters, and Emory Yaxley, the man who killed Amelia Bones. There are no flowers thrown on the grave, no eulogies for a boy who had not yet grown into a man. Millicent whispers words of regret to the corpse of a brother she barely knew and tries to offer his cold frame some form of redemption, even though she knows his soul is too far gone. Marcus pulls her away as she ignores her aching pain.
:::
“I’m sorry,” Blaise tells her when she boards the train. It’s the first time he’s ever apologized for anything, and she knows he means it more than he’s meant anything in his entire life. She offers him a broken half smile that most Slytherins would have mocked and sits across from Theodore in the compartment closest to the conductor. There are no words spoken between her and the man who took her innocence. There is only the warm touch of his hand, the solidness of his shoulder beneath her head, and an unspoken promise that they’ll live through this.
Hopefully.
:::
Death becomes a familiar face sooner than anyone expects. The obituary section of the Daily Prophet now takes up six pages, and this is after the Ministry bans mentioning the deaths of children. Malfoy looks more pompous than ever before, but Theodore tells her that he whimpers in his sleep. Pansy boasts of how well her father’s connected within Voldemort’s circles and Tracey Davis tells them she’s the second cousin of Rodolphus Lestrange.
Millicent knows her father is better connected than any of them, but she doesn’t see the point in bragging about the dirtiest thing her family ever did.
:::
She isn’t entirely sure what Theodore means to her, except that she knows she isn’t in love with him, so she doesn’t see the point in keeping him tied to her. It’s a good thing, because the moment she lets go of Theodore, Daphne starts talking to her again, and Millicent’s missed the distraction the blonde witch provides.
They talk about OWLs scores and dress robes and how good of a shag Blaise probably is. It’s mindless, but it means Millicent can avoid conversations about her father’s involvement, or Lucien’s new scars, or how Perseus doesn’t even look human now.
::