~The Other One~

"Well if it isn't my dearest brother."

Bella's blood boiled at the sight of the oily little weasel in front of her, his hair slicked back with an entire gel and hairspray bottle, she knew as she shared a bathroom with him up until she was fourteen.

"Bella," Draco sneered, his face twisting into a scowl like her fathers did whenever he said her name.

"Glad to see you haven't forgotten my name seeing as how you haven't talked to me since the ride home at the end of the last school year," she snapped.

His unbothered expression did not waver but Bella could tell a flicker of hurt appeared in those stormy eyes they shared.

"I never considered you much of a sister anyway, you have never done anything for me," he scoffed.

Now, this cut deep. She had moved mountains for him. Always taking the blow when their father got angry, making sure both of her parents were in their best moods when he was around.

She gave him the childhood she never had, the loving parents she never had.

He was the golden child. The apple of their eye and she was the one they happily cast to the side, overshadowed by her bratty younger brother.

"That is not true," she shot back, a lump forming in her throat.

She never wanted to be a bad sister.

"Whatever."

❤

Standing in front of her floor-length mirror, Bella dabbed essence of dittany on her bruised cheek, another uncalled outburst from her dear father.

Her breath hitched in her throat and salty tears trickled from her bloodshot eyes.

"Bella?"

Narcissa Malfoy entered the grand bedroom and addressed her curtly, her platinum hair in tight coils.

"Put on your dress, we're going in an hour. Oh and do wear some makeup, you look dreadfully tired," she said sternly, overlooking the fact that her daughter had a brewing purple mark on her face.

Bella felt like the walls were closing in on her, her throat closing up and breath not arriving in her lungs.

Gripping onto the silver railing of her bed she gasped for breath, her free hand closing around her throat.

"Pull yourself together, you don't need any more attention than you already get," Narcissa snapped, "I did not raise an attention seeker.

"Mom," she called out, her voice childish and desperate as tears streamed down from her grey eyes.

"Enough Bella, I do not have time for this, we're leaving in just under an hour, understood?"

Not waiting for an answer Narcissa strode out of the room, the sound of her impossibly high heels clacking on the pristine tiles.

Crumpling into a sobbing heap on the floor, Bella waited for the attack to pass, shaking violently for twenty more minutes until she was able to collect herself.

Like usual, no one came to comfort her.

❤