Pride Tears | Dean Thomas

04

proud

"Just one thing, I would never had wear that colour. But, I have to admit... it's nice."

Dean snorted at the comment. "Let me guess, you wore green?"

This made Adele laugh and shook her head. "Maybe, but I usually wore white shades, if something... blue or purple." She sighed and stared at the window behind Dean, lost in her memories again. "I think once I wore a crimson dress... Father had to bite down his tongue. He couldn't stand to compliment Godric's colour. But I saw it... He liked it a lot."

The smile on her face was sad. She sighed, even if she didn't breathe anymore. "Go on, ask. I know you want to."

Dean could feel his cheeks warm. He cleared his throat. "How... how was he? Your father..."

"Distant, cold, strict... Is that what are you expecting?" She joked a bit before she began to glide on the corridor. "He was... warm. His hugs were the best. Granted he didn't smiled a lot, especially not in public. But he loved me and my brothers. He loved mum... when she passed away, he... began to break. He was the same around us but..."

"Helga helped a lot when that happened. I think I was thirteen. She became my motherly figure; I looked up at her a lot. And my father leaned on her too; Rowena wasn't that emotionally smart but did her best, same as Godric."

He listened, trying - and failing to picture it. Maybe because he had no father and the tales of Salazar Slytherin were, scary to say at least.

"So, they did were friends... when happened... the fight?" Dean asked carefully. It was a delicate subject. Adele stopped her gliding. "What they told us is that Slytherin, your father, didn't want muggleborns here at the school and Gryffindor did... they fought, he made the Chamber and... left..."

"Did you know they were terribly alike?" Adele asked suddenly, her gaze fixed on him. "They were a pair of proud, stubborn men. Both were willing to die for their ideals, ready to fight. Maybe my father thought about the best way first, and Godric just jumped in. But they were the same, and that was why they fought so much. They saw each other flaws as their own. Godric's pride pushed my father away... "

"But it was my pride the one who caused the fight."

Dean was confused, terribly confused. "What do you mean? Slytherin hated muggleborns, he wanted to exterminate them. He didn't consider them worth..."

"There is where everyone is wrong!" she yelled, her fists tight beside her. "That... that non-sense has nothing to do with my father! He... he disliked them, he didn't understood them, he... he feared them. And... after... he... he did hate them." Her eyes were blazing with anger, but Dean believed it wasn't all directed to him. "But it wasn't his fault!"

"Okay, okay... Sorry... Could, could you explain it then?" he pleaded; an angry ghost who could turn invisible was nothing good.

"It is a long story..." she whispered, her gaze softening.

"We have time, I'm not sleepy. And you don't need to sleep." Dean encouraged her to speak.

"He... saw them as a threat to our world. We used to live in harmony with muggles, that's what my grandparents told me... They were always afraid of us but the kept us close and asked for help... if was a respectful fear. If they didn't bother us, we would leave them alone. It was... actually quite the honour to be a muggleborn. You were a miracle, a gift. But... by the time my father married my mother; muggles started to fear even more... and began to hunt us. Their religions clashed with out nature and well... I guess you know that part or the history. "She started to glide again.

"So, naturally, being a muggleborn became something bad... it was an open door for muggles to attack. Godric wanted to protect them, same as Helga and Rowena. My father... he wasn't in complete disagree, you know... at first. But he didn't want to deal with them. Explain them how the world worked, how they couldn't come back to their families anymore... because they would put their new family in danger. He couldn't fathom how a witch or a wizard so talented was born from fearful, hateful, ignorant beings."

"After my mum passed, she was attacked by a dragon while working, my father started to break. Now he just had my brothers, Alphonse and Adrian, and me. So when I graduated, he became very protective over me. I brushed it off because I was just studying to become a professor at the school... "

Dean interrupted without meaning to, "You were going to teach?"

She glared at him for interrupting but nodded. "Yes, I was going to teach History of Magic. I was still studying when Helga asked me for a favour."