It's My Fault! ((Seth))

[evelyn]

It was one of those unusually heated days that England got every so often. The sun was shining, birds chirped in the trees and Azure was patiently sitting at the bottom of a tree, just waiting for her chance to pounce on her prey. Her father was at work, which would surprise absolutely no one who knew him. Payton Winter was hardly the type of man who would take a day off work to stay home with his family. Her mother, as a parallel to their surname, despised the summer and the sunshine, however weak or strong, it brought. She had sensitive skin. Evelyn permitted herself a small, disloyal smirk at the concept. Her mother had nothing that was sensitive, except perhaps her pride. It was a treacherous and distinctly unchristian thought that had Evelyn’s thumb subconsciously rubbing against the smooth metal of the cross hanging around her neck. God preached family loyalty and respect for one’s parents. Who was Evelyn to disobey the Lord? Sometimes though, she simply couldn’t help it. The priest she confessed to was beginning to grow exasperated with her, Evelyn was sure. She doubted the Lord’s laws and disobeyed his word, even if only in thought. That was not the way a good Catholic girl should act. Of course, good Catholic women didn’t lay with their neighbour’s husbands, and certainly not out of wedlock. Evelyn wasn’t stupid; she knew how to count. She hadn’t been born prematurely and there weren’t nine or more months between the date of her parents’ wedding and her birth. It was just one more burden to press down on her painfully whenever she caught sight of Seth, Eva or their poor mother.

Despite the genuine tightening in her chest whenever she saw a member of the Wright family, Evelyn was currently sitting comfortably on a wooden bench in the garden with an unfortunately perfect view of next door. It was the best place to be safe from her mother’s interrogations, because she wouldn’t dare to venture into the heat of the garden. Most of her attention was on the book in her hands, though some was spared for the hunting Azure, the heat on the back of her neck and the chaos in the next house. Something was most definitely happening over there. She couldn’t see Mrs Wright anywhere, which was most definitely a good thing for Evelyn’s state of mind. As much terror and guilt that filled her when she saw Eva or Seth, it was always so much worse when she saw Mrs Wright. She had only stolen a workaholic father from Seth and Eva; they wouldn’t have seen him very often anyway. Mrs Wright had lost so much more; she had lost a husband, someone to depend on emotionally and financially. Evelyn only hated herself all the more whenever she gazed at Mrs Wright so she was grateful for the milder pain that came from seeing only Seth and Eva.

Speaking of which, her half-siblings appeared to be carting around boxes or something similar. Mildly bewildered and intrigued, Evelyn canted her head to the side and abandoned all pretences of reading her book. What on earth was happening in the house next door? If she didn’t know any better, she would say that someone was moving out. Of course, that did make sense, Evelyn realised with mixed horror and relief. Seth had graduated now so of course he would be leaving. She would not have to face the boy whom she had deprived of a father, though Eva would still remain to torment her. Evelyn’s wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that. There was no denying that she felt crippling guilt every time she faced the Wright family, but that guilt and pain also acted as her penance for unwittingly stealing what was rightfully theirs. If she didn’t serve the entirety of her penance then how could she ever expect to be forgiven? Not by Seth or Eva, and most certainly not by Mrs Wright; Evelyn would never dare to ask for their forgiveness. She was not worthy of it. Yet, one day, she did hope to find salvation in the warmth of Heaven.

“Eve! Eve, where are you?”

Her mother’s demanding shriek sparked off a chain reaction. All at once, Azure pounced for a low-flying bird and abruptly miscalculated her jump, hissing as she missed her prey and instead landed on Evelyn, scratching long furrows down her left arm. Evelyn let out a quiet yelp of pain, dropping her book and leaping to her feet in the same motion. The book lay face-down on the grass and Azure, ears flat against her head, ran away to hide amongst the bushes. Torn, Evelyn glanced between her cat and the house before sighing and heading in the direction of her calling mother. Azure would have to recover her dignity by herself; Evelyn’s mother had never been good at waiting. Hurriedly, Evelyn cleaned and bandaged the deep scratches marring her arm before heeding her mother’s beckoning. To anyone who had never owned a cat with sharp claws, it might seem excessive to bandage cuts made by a mere cat but Evelyn knew better. Azure was prickly and feisty and she knew how to dig her claws in deeply when she was alarmed. Evelyn already had too many small scars from her cat; she didn’t need infected cuts too. Her mother regarded her with irritation, partially caused by the heat and partly because of Evelyn’s perceived dawdling, once Evelyn entered the living room but nevertheless rattled off her orders before dismissing her daughter with one last reminder that she hadn’t yet read a chapter of the Bible for today.

Evelyn was still bristling angrily as she went around the muggle supermarket, shopping list in her pocket and a basket on her right arm. She had never once shirked her reading of the Bible and it was derogatory of her mother to even imply that she would. Mouth thin with silent displeasure, Evelyn shoved a large bag of potatoes into the intolerably heavy basket then strode in the direction of the eggs. Just one carton, the list said, which was just as well because Evelyn was already doubtful that the money her mother had supplied her with was enough for the heavy basket of things that was listed on the piece of paper. With the carton of eggs held securely in her left hand, Evelyn whirled around on her heel, nearly collided with a tall figure and abruptly dropped the eggs at his feet. Eyes wide and breath catching in her throat, Evelyn made a sound that could not be construed as anything but desperate horror and dropped to her knees. It was futile and pointless but Evelyn still grasped urgently at the cracked eggs as if she could scrape them off Seth’s shoes and make them appear whole in the carton once more. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Evelyn murmured frantically as the slimy egg yolk spread over her hands and dripped between her fingers.

[Seth Wright]

((The sister they share: Evangeline Cerise Wright.))

Finally, the day had arrived! Seth dashed hurriedly through the rooms of the second floor, looking frantically around, whilst shouts echoed up the stairwell: "Seth! Do you need plasters? Or will Kael have them?"

"Pack them! Just in case!" Seth yelled in reply, rummaging through a tiny box-like closet in the side of the wall in the bathroom. "Dammit, I swear I put it down for like a second yesterday--"

"SETH!"

"YEAH?"

"What about TISSUES?"

"Just pack EVERYTHING, Eva!"

"Well," the indignant voice of his younger sister' huffed, "you can't take everything. Mum and I need stuff too, big brother."

Seth grinned at Eva's mock petulance, before yelping in delight and pulling out a stripy sock. "Found it!"

"Really, Seth." Eva was suddenly behind him with a cynical expression often worn on her face, causing Seth to jump in surprise. "You should've thought about all of this before today... At least Kael's expecting you in the evening, but still, I didn't think you'd leave it until the morning of the day itself." The sixteen-year-old grinned affectionately despite her cross tone of voice. "But you wouldn't be my brother if you weren't last-minute and forgetful, and klutzy as hell. You're worse than an airhead, I think."

"Oi!" Seth retorted, pushing past Eva and back into his bedroom. "Just help me out, Eva, I really don't want to be late tonight," he pleaded at his sister standing in the doorway. "He probably thinks I'm a right dork already--"

"--because you are--"

"--and I don't want to get off on the wrong foot with him--"

"--you're already friends, though--"

"--he probably doesn't see me as a friend and I want him to think--"

"--he must like you enough, to let you live with him--"

"--so I want to be as normal as possible and not get on his nerves--"

"--fat chance of that happening!"

Seth finally sighed, sinking down to sit on the floorboards and look up at Eva's amused face. "I wish I was going back to Hogwarts with you," he suddenly said in a quiet voice. "I already miss it."

Eva's expression softened, and she crouched down to be on face level with her brother. She pulled him into a hug before he could refuse, and said, "It's time to grow up, big brother. Don't worry. I think you'll be just fine."

***

Three hours later...

"Almost done!" Eva declared triumphantly, watching Seth perform the floating charm with much more expertise than he had a few hours ago on yet another large box and place it by the front door. "Well done! Only a few more to go!"

"I'm hungry," Seth commented, staring at the clock in the lounge and thinking they had missed their lunchtime by a mile. "Sorry, we haven't had lunch yet."

Eva waved away her brother's guilty look. "S'all right. We'll need to go to the shops, though; house is out of food." Their mother was out working, as usual, so, also as usual, it would just be the two siblings, buying groceries and cooking for and by themselves. Eva grabbed their coats and flung Seth's to him. "C'mon."

Seth smiled at the back of his sister's head as he shut the front door behind him. Eva was like a rock; steady, strong, secure. She was everything he wasn't, but when he was with her, more than anyone in the world except their mother, Seth could be the person he really was: funny, confident, even slightly sarcastic. Seth was all those things, but his insecurities had always held him back. But no more; it was time to change, and moving in with Kael was his first step after leaving Hogwarts towards independence.

They arrived at the store and quickly bustled inside, stomachs hungry. "I'll get the meat and fish," Eva suggested, grabbing a shopping basket and heading towards an aisle with practised ease. "You get the eggs and veg. Get any snacks you want too. Maybe take some for Kael?"

Seth grinned and took a basket too, heading in a different direction. He couldn't get lost in the supermarket. He hadn't shopped in a long time, as his mum lived alone whilst they were at Hogwarts, but as a child, he'd known this place like the back of his hand, and not much had changed, except for a few aisle swaps. Seth made towards the eggs first, which were nearest. As he stepped up to the section, he was completely oblivious to the familiar girl standing in front of him, also purchasing eggs, as he was staring at some new packaging of food on the other end.

As usual, Seth smashed right into her. He was always bumping into strangers, or fellow classmates at Hogwarts; he was clumsy to the core. Blinking, surprised, Seth quickly adjusted himself and stared at the girl at his feet. Oh. He hadn't noticed the eggs smashing against his shoes. They were rather ruined, though a good spell would sort them out. Seth gave a nervous laugh as the girl began to apologise profusely. "No, it's okay, I can, er, wash them. Honest. Don't worry about it. I'll be fi--" Seth trailed off, eyes widening in half horror, half shock, at the face of the girl who had just looked up and caught his face with a mirroring expression of disbelief and fear.

Evelyn. Evelyn Winter. His half-sister. His next-door neighbour. Seth could only gape at the younger girl, who was in Ravenclaw, in Eva's year, and who was clearly terrified at the feet of Seth, egg yolk dripping from her fingers. "Uh..." Expletives ran through Seth's head. He had never, ever, in all these years, been placed in such a difficult position. He'd never had to face his other sister before. Several things ran through Seth's head - good things, bad things, all accumulated throughout the years since his father had left them - but words refused to come forth. The same could be said for Evelyn. Blinking dazedly, Seth eventually forced himself to gulp and smile shakily.

"E-Evelyn, right? I'm, er... Seth. We're, er... Well, we're, um, neighbours." Seth almost winced at his phrasing. "And you... you go to Hogwarts too, right? Well, I don't actually go to Hogwarts any more. Well, I won't be going back." Seth wrung his hands stressfully, but kept going nonetheless, not wanting his sister to panic and run away screaming. He had forgiven Evelyn long ago; her birth was, of course, not her own doing, but his dastardly, disloyal father's. Their father's. Evelyn was innocent, like himself, like Eva. "I'm graduating. I mean, graduated." Seth laughed nervously. "I'm moving house today, actually. Going to, em, live with a... a friend." He nodded; convincing only himself. "Um, a-anyway, it's okay, you don't need to, you know, do that. Um, get up, let me, er, do a spell..." Seth was quick to grab Evelyn by the arm and drag her up before she could protect, and with his free hand take out his wand. "I'm not very good with spells," he said unsurely as he gazed around for Muggles, "but I'll try."

The egg yolk, thankfully, disappeared with a wave of Seth's wand, along with the remains spread across the floor. "H-How about that?" Seth stammered, though a genuine smile lit his face, and pocketed his wand again. "Are you okay? I er... I know this is, um... awkward. Pretty awkward. But um. I don't bite." He cracked a lopsided smile, and watched Evelyn for a reaction. A part of Seth shifted inside, and a feeling of moving on towards the future flooded his chest.

[evelyn]

Seth was...being nice about her clumsiness? Even though it was her who had caused the accident and ruined his shoes? With rising hope, Evelyn glanced up, tentatively meeting Seth’s brown eyes with her own though her head lowered in pained yet expected dejection once her brother realised whom he was reassuring and immediately seemed to recoil away from her. They both shared the same light brown eye colour, though their hair colour differed quite blatantly. Had they both inherited that pale eye colour from their father or from another relative they both shared? Her mother had bright green eyes, Evelyn knew. She had gotten her hair colour from her mother, but not the eyes. Evelyn shared her eyes with her father; quite possibly the only thing they shared except a last name and blood. So had Seth inherited that eye colour from their father or from his mother? She was thinking far too much about something so insignificant, but it was something that they perhaps shared, some tangible sign that they were more than strangers or next door neighbours. It was something that her mother would hate but Evelyn grasped at it with pathetic desperation. Seth was a Winter too; he just went by a different surname, which was something that Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to do. Her father wasn’t a wonderful person and he was a worse father than he was a person but Evelyn had been brought up to respect and obey her parents without question. Such deeply ingrained training was hard to ignore.

So Evelyn had been correct after all. Seth hated her. The expression on his face said it all. It didn’t come as any surprise to her, this hatred. Her mother had always told her that the Wrights weren’t capable of Christian forgiveness and therefore were heathens who should be ignored at all costs. Evelyn hadn’t ever believed that though. She had spent too many hours staring wistfully out of her window, books lying ignored on her desk as her eyes tracked the playful antics of her brother and sister in the garden next door. Evelyn had never gotten the chance to play like that. At all times, she had to be the perfect child, well educated and polite and the very epitome of the saying ‘children should be seen and not heard’. In contrast, Seth and Eva had always seemed to be so free, so unrestrained. As they deserved to be. For what her mother had done, for what Evelyn had unwittingly stolen from the Wright family, she deserved far worse a punishment. All the same, part of her couldn’t help but to selfishly wish that she could have shared in those hours of playing, that she could have been acknowledged as their sister instead of a thief who should not have ever been born. Evelyn would have loved to have known Seth and Eva as more than her very own personal boggarts. It simply was not possible. To do that would be to disobey her parents and to disregard the suffering that she and her mother had caused Mrs Wright and her two children. Evelyn was not so bold.

With wide and obviously terrified eyes, Evelyn nodded at Seth slowly to verify her name. Had she known how very much she resembled a small, extremely frightened child being faced by the most terrifying monster in existence at that moment, Evelyn would have despised her lack of composure. But this was Seth Wright. Her half-brother. To Evelyn, there was no one more intimidating in existence. Except perhaps Eva Wright or their mother. Her hands were shaking but Evelyn ignored that as her right hand crept towards a lock of her red hair to tug at it with enough pressure to make her wince had she been aware of the action. Her fingers were slick with the egg yolk as it slid further down her forearm and into the crease of her bent elbow. The tugging on her hair was a purely childish action, one that Evelyn had thought she had grown out of many years before. It was a signal of weakness, of insecurity and terror. She was grown up now, only a year away from turning seventeen. She was far too old for such gestures. As such, it took far too much effort to force her fingers to uncurl and release the small section of her hair.

“I...” Her voice failed her, cracking before she could even force out her first word, and Evelyn cursed herself violently. She was pathetic. No wonder Seth and Eva hated her. They had lost their father to someone who didn’t deserve him. “I know who you are.” That sounded far too disturbing, almost as if she had been stalking him from a distance. Her face flushed slightly in a miserable red tint and her shoulders slumped for a second before Evelyn regained her impeccable posture out of sheer habit, despite her position at Seth’s feet. As she should be, like a pitiful wretch begging for forgiveness that she would never receive. “I’m a Ravenclaw,” Evelyn confirmed, her voice barely above a whisper only because she couldn’t force her voice to a louder volume. If they had been a normal brother and sister, Evelyn could have proudly announced that she was a Prefect and waited with a wide smile to see if her brother was proud of her for her achievement. Evelyn longed to do that. The fear was too crippling to permit her do so though. Would Seth accuse her of bragging and hate her even more? She had no right to tell Seth of her achievements. He would not be proud of her. He grabbed her arm, hauling her upright, and Evelyn instinctively backed away with a muffled sound of absolute terror. She hadn’t been prepared for that. Part of her mind had instantly jumped to the conclusion that he was going to strike her. It seemed like the inevitable end to the encounter. Evelyn was hated, and she deserved to be. If she hadn’t deserved it then she wouldn’t have followed the unspoken rules that Seth and Eva had set out for her: they stayed away from her at Hogwarts and at home, and she returned the favour out of respect to them and what she had taken from them.

It was a Muggle shop and so Evelyn automatically moved to shield Seth from sight as he cleared the eggs splattered across the floor. It hadn’t even taken thought; she had just moved instinctively. They had never properly met or talked to each other, but Evelyn’s entire life had revolved around Seth and Eva and what they were doing in their lives. Whatever they were excelling in, Evelyn had to do better. Quidditch was the exception. Her mother believed that the game was barbaric and unnecessarily violent so Evelyn had never been pushed to join the Ravenclaw team even though she would love to be good enough to join the team. Playing against Seth would have been too awkward though. Maybe she would finally get the nerve to try out for the team in September since Seth had graduated now. “I-I’m fine. Really.” In all honesty, her arm had started to throb beneath the bandage but Seth didn’t need to know that. He wouldn’t care and so Evelyn wouldn’t burden him with that knowledge. “I’m so sorry that I walked into you. I mustn’t have been paying enough attention. It was careless of me. I should have been better. I just...I’m sorry.” Evelyn wasn’t sure if she had even taken a breath during any of those sentences, which would explain why she was breathing heavily. That didn’t offer a reason for the tears she felt welling up in her eyes; those were due to fear and shame. She had failed to steer clear of Seth even after he and his sister had made it clear that they preferred to have nothing to do with her.

[Seth Wright]

Seth nodded his awkwardly. "Yeah. Of course you do. Silly me." Evelyn obviously knew him; they were brother and sister, after all. Seth had suspected Evelyn's ignorance when she had first joined Hogwarts with Eva, but that had been corrected when it became obvious Evelyn was avoiding the Wright siblings just as much as they had been avoiding her. Seth and Eva had concluded that there was little doubt Evelyn Winter knew their shared history; and shared blood. Evelyn spoke in a whisper, but their close proximity was no trouble for Seth's hearing. "I know," he said rather quickly, like she had. "I'm in Hufflepuff. Well, actually, I used to be in Hufflepuff. Same difference, right?" Seth flashed an awkward smile. There had been some mercy that Evelyn hadn't been sorted into either his or Eva's houses; not because Seth despised her, but because if he had had to see his half-sister so often, these awkward moments would have tripled over the last five years they had been at Hogwarts together.

"No! No no, it was me," Seth began to babble in protest, alarmed that Evelyn was shirking the blame onto herself. "It was definitely me, I was the one who walked into you. Really, I do it a lot, I do it all the time. I'm always crashing into things and hurting other people, and myself too. It's not your fault so stop saying sorry." He stared helplessly at Evelyn. He didn't know what to say; somehow her presence was both terrifyingly alarming and soothingly simple at the same time, and Seth didn't know how to react. He was also afraid of scaring Evelyn away. She looked and acted like a frightened mouse, and as the older one - as an adult - he had to take responsibility. "I say sorry all the time, you know," he suddenly blurted out, looking away, at anything but Evelyn's large, round eyes. "It's a really bad habit. I'm always doing things wrong, and even when I don't, I say sorry anyway, because I think it's my fault. But it's a bad habit. I need to stop. It makes people think they can take advantage and taking the blame for something you did is stupid, right?"

Seth suddenly came to a halt in his mini speech, as though remembering something. He grabbed a box of eggs and shoved them into Evelyn's hands. "Here. That's what you wanted to buy, right? I wanted eggs myself." He then got a box and put it in his basket. "Do you always do the grocery shopping?" he then asked, realising it was a personal question but not really thinking to hold it back, as usual. Where was Evelyn's mother? And their father? Seth wondered if they gave Evelyn any time at all. A large part of him really wanted to inquire about Payton - about Evelyn's life, and what their dad was like. But it was inappropriate, Seth wasn't brave enough to say it, and another part of him didn't want to know at all. Plus, Evelyn would probably bolt, and Seth didn't want that; for the first time, he really wanted to speak with his other sister, even reconcile with her and form a relatonship. He'd never wanted to before, he'd just wanted to avoid his past; but he was moving forwards, and confronting his history was more important than anything. It would let him move on.

[evelyn]

Had Seth been anyone else, Evelyn would have turned a caustically disbelieving gaze on him. ‘Same difference’? Really now? There was an amazingly large difference between being a Hufflepuff, or a Hogwarts student from any House, and being a graduate out in the real world. How thoughtless of Seth to say otherwise. He could go wherever he wanted, get a job to help out his mother – his poor, suffering mother; suffering because Evelyn had been born. That was why Evelyn merely lowered her gaze back to the floor without saying a word. She couldn’t speak back to Seth. She didn’t have the right. She wasn’t worthy. He and Eva and Mrs Wright were so far above her that Evelyn couldn’t bear to even glance at them for too long. She simply wasn’t sadistic enough to take pleasure from the pain that the Wright family caused her because of what she and her mother had done to them. Evelyn deserved the pain – her mother had been the sinful one, as had her father but neither of them had stepped up to do the penance and so it all fell to Evelyn. She would carry her burden with her head held proudly high except for when she encountered Seth, Eva or their mother.

“It was my fault,” Evelyn insisted, her voice still quiet but so much firmer than it had been before. “It was my fault. All of it. This. Everything. You don’t deserve the blame.” Seth never deserved to be blamed. For anything. Whatever he had done to be blamed for, Evelyn had done far worse. She had broken a family apart, stolen a father and earned the hatred of the two people who should have loved her and been loved by her in return simply because she had been born. When her mother had first taught her about original sin, the idea that babies were born inherently sinful because of the apple eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, Evelyn had nearly burst into derisive, if slightly hysterical, laughter. Born inherently sinful for an apple eaten so long ago? Evelyn had been born sinful merely because of who her parents were and what they had done, what her birth had caused. That was a so much more important reason for being born full of sin than eating an apple. And so her Catholic guilt increased with every sinful comment that passed through her mind.

“Really. I meant it. My fault.” For her older brother, Evelyn mustered up the very smallest of hesitant, terrified smiles. He couldn’t think that the accident had been his fault. He just couldn’t! He couldn’t even bear to look at her any longer. The emotional and mental pain resting in Evelyn suddenly sharpened and increased at the revelation. She had done so much to Seth’s family that he couldn’t even stand the sight of her for longer than a few minutes. The small part of her that had perked up with unreasonable and selfish hope once Seth had started to treat her kindly abruptly shrivelled up and disappeared. She had no right to expect anything from him. Though he had asked her a question, however rhetorically it could be construed and so Evelyn had to answer. That was the very least he deserved from her. “You should only apologise for what you’re truly to blame for,” Evelyn offered timidly. “It can’t always be your fault so you shouldn’t always apologise. It’s not right.”

“Um.” Evelyn’s hand automatically closed around the box of eggs but she had to glance down in dazed confusion before she registered what Seth’s movement had meant. “Oh. Thank you.” Being within so close proximity to one of her half-siblings was truly playing havoc with her thought processes if she had regressed to using only monosyllabic words. She should be ashamed to call herself a Ravenclaw. “Sometimes,” Evelyn replied to her half-brother’s query promptly. It was an invasive question, but this was Seth Wright. He could ask far worse things of her and she would be obliged to answer. Just as she would be with Eva and Mrs Wright. “I’m usually in charge of doing the grocery shopping when I’m home for the summer. Mother dislikes the supermarkets and she has other things to be doing. Like reading the Bible.” Despite everything, the corner of Evelyn’s mouth twitched in habitual laughing scorn at the idea. Her mother was no more religious than most of the students at Hogwarts were. She merely hid it and acted hypocritically. She had finished shopping but Evelyn merely shifted from foot to foot awkwardly, her basket heavily hooked in the crook of her elbow. She couldn’t leave without Seth’s signal that he wished for the conversation to be over. That would be rude. Evelyn didn’t want to add that to her long list of offences against the Wright family, no matter how furious her mother would be for lingering so long without good reason. Telling her mother that she had talked to Seth was most certainly out of the question. That would just cause a huge argument and her father would end up being involved, which never ended well.