Château de Rosier Solo Closed

Bella was making her way to her room when she passed by Alina's doorway. "Belle!" Alina shouted, putting down her quill that she had been using to write one of her friends. She watched as her sister came inside. No use dancing around the subject...best to get right to the point.

"I heard you're transferring to Beauxbatons?" she asked quietly. The news still stung. "I thought you liked Slytherin." Her twin sister rolled her eyes and came over to sit on the chair near Alina's bed. "I liked it well enough for last year...but that mangy old castle gives me the creeps. Plus, one can only explore their talents so far at Hogwarts." Alina tilted her head some, not really sure what that meant.

"Won't you miss your friends? Xavier? ...Me?" she almost didn't want to say that last part. Bella just looked to her, not answering right away. "I'll make new friends. I'll meet new boys. And Lina...of course I'll miss you but I'll still see you. We're sisters, right?"

"Yeah, we're sisters. We'll still see each other," she smiled weakly. "It's just that I've missed you a lot already. We've grown a little distant and ...you've changed."

Bella's eyes narrowed some as she looked to Alina. "No, Lina. That's just it. YOU have changed. You talked of your Hufflepuff House at the beginning of the year being all - how did you put it? Sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. That's what you've turned into. A bubbly mindless perky little girl ready to light up the room and befriending wizard and mudblood alike. Granted your boy is cute and he's nice but..."

Alina stood up quickly. "Shut it! You're not going to talk to me like that in my own room! If I did change to be all that then I've changed for the better and it's a downright shame that you didn't as well! What's wrong with you anymore, Belles? We're all just here on this Earth for the time we're given and we need to make the best of it...not try to be better than one another!"

Bella stood up too, standing now before her identical twin sister. The two identical in looks but having little in common anymore beyond that. "Some of us aren't trying to be better than another, we just are. You included. Sadly you don't realize it. Maybe someday you will."

"Please, go," Alina lowered her gaze and whispered, hating to say that to her sister but she was livid at the way she was putting her friends down, putting her school and house down, and putting herself down.

"Gladly," Bella said and flipped her hair as she turned and stormed out.

Originally Alina was going to tell him about Bella's leaving for Beauxbatons the day before. Her twin had everything packed up and headed out and Alina didn't even exactly know when she'd see her again. Sure, they could write and would write but she knew Bella would get wrapped up in her social life the way she had even just in Slytherin and the letters would be few and far between. She was going to tell him how Juliette just up and left suddenly without word. She planned to tell him how this all left her feeling lost but she never got the chance to tell him. He delivered news that sidetracked her and made a lifelong bond of family being just a country away seem minuscule compared to someone that she cared about so deeply just vanishing from her life.

Clifton Troublefield was no longer hers. He wouldn't be writing her letters or visiting. She wouldn't be visiting him or seeing him at their second year of Hogwarts. There was no more Secret Secret Blossom Balls or origami badger notes. There was no more special dances or sand dollars or seashell necklaces. No explanations of muggle things or fun little pranks to fill their time. No additional trips to Paris to show him her favorite spots. It was all only a memory now.

She went back to the train station and to the corridor that magically concealed itself for wizards, turning into a series of hearths so that one could use the floo network. She thought back to the time he first came to visit and she sprinkled a little of the powdery substance in his hair playfully before showing him the proper procedure for getting to her home. Home. She didn't even want to go back there. It was full of memories of him but at least it would have her father there and maybe she could grieve to him.

She entered back at Updown Court into the Floo Network Entrance and headed into the Grand Foyer. "Father?" she called out, her voice echoing in the large mansion. She headed to his office and knocked softly on the old wooden door before slowly opening it. Normally she'd wait until he granted her entrance but this was an emergency. "Daddy, I need you," she called, using this term for the first time since she was probably a toddler as she opened the door. Tears were already in her eyes and she just needed someone to hold her while she cried but the room was empty.

"He needed some time, Miss Alina," she heard the voice of her father's assistant James from behind her. "With Juliette leaving so suddenly....he just..." but she shook her head. "He's just doing what he does best, being an absent parent." She turned to look at James, a man she saw as a friend and he could tell she was distraught. "Miss Alina..." he whispered, hating to see her looking so sad, so confused, so lost. She shook her head. No, she loved James dearly but this is something that her father needed to be there for. Or her sister. Or SOMEONE that wasn't going to up and leave like every other damned person in her life.

"No," she said, refusing to talk to him and stormed out of her father's office, heading up the staircase and to her room where she shut herself in. Summer couldn't end fast enough.