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Azalea has been in Port Angles for almost two years now.
She's not entirely sure what she's doing at the moment.
She knows why she left Wizarding Britain - She left for… various complicated reasons, but chief among them was the very simple desire to find the rest of her family. After the war ended, she had done the standard genealogy test back in Britain (Voldemort may have been killed, but wizards were still very focused on blood and lineage, and don't even get Azalea started on that) and found, much to her shock, that she has family in Forks, Washington; a small, rainy town in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
So why is she currently at a bar that is most pointedly not in Forks, drinking overly priced scotch instead of hunting down her family?
She'd like to say it's because she wants to be based in a big city, which Forks is definitely not.
She'd like to say it's because Port Angeles has a surprising number of nice restaurants, and Azalea would like to relax and be free a bit before tying herself down to one place.
She'd like to say it's because she has pressing business in Port Angeles, business that demanded she stay here for the last two years.
The truth?
The truth is it's because she's a coward.
Upon finding out she has family in Forks, Azalea had almost immediately packed up all her things, settled all her affairs, and flown over to the United States (the muggle way – and wasn't that a nerve-wracking experience she promised herself to never do ever again - so that the American Ministry of Magic wouldn't be alerted as to her presence). She had arrived at Port Angeles, a mere few hours by car out of Forks, filled with hope and determination and then just… stopped.
Because Azalea has shit luck (as befitting a Potter), carries a hell of a lot of baggage, and who the Hell is she to just barge into these people's lives like they owe her something?
And if she does, then what? What if they do get to know her and then don't like her? Her other biological family certainly doesn't, and couldn't be happier to be rid of her. What if there is just something about Azalea that is deeply undesirable in a family member?
She… She really doesn't want to go through the rejection again.
In the first few years of living with the Dursleys, Azalea had desperately, pathetically, tried to be liked, and when failure after failure and rejection after rejection had worn her down, cracked something deep inside her, chipped at some essential, unnamable thing, and Azalea had finally reached a point where one more rejection would have broken her, she had decided, at the grand age of six, that she would reject the Dursleys as well, and the decision had protected the battered remains of her fragile heart.
Azalea is the Girl-Who-Lived, Woman-Who-Conquered, the indomitable Lady Black, and she feels like that little girl of six again, hopeful yet fearful, too young to prepare herself for disappointment, even with the firm knowledge that it is the most probable outcome, hoping against hope that this time it might be different, that there has been a change of heart, that if she changes one small thing about herself, if she weeds the garden one more time, if she makes an extra-delicious breakfast, if she is extra quiet when they lock her in her cupboard, then maybe they'd realize they were wrong before and that they'd love her at least a quarter as much as they love Dudley, or maybe just an eighth as much, even just a teensy weeny tiny little bit.
Azalea feels fragile and uncertain- she doesn't know if she can take rejection from her new family.
It might break her.
With rough, jerky movements, Azalea downs the rest of her scotch and slams the glass back down, not bothering to notice the small jump the man sitting besides her gives at the sound.
What is she, a child? A baby whining for its mummy? What happened to the woman who has faced down death countless times and won, to the woman who has killed basilisks and Death Eaters, to the woman who has faced down a hoard of hundreds of dementors?
Bloody hell, forget all of that. What happened to the eleven-year-old girl who was put into the house of the lion, "where dwell the brave of heart"?
One look at the bartender has him refilling her glass with more of the overpriced scotch.
Blast it all, she's pretty sure her Gryffindor courage died right alongside Voldemort that fateful battle.
Azalea takes a sip of her drink, gives herself enough time this time to savor the taste and feel the burn go down her throat.
What a joke.
.
.
.
Azalea spots the blonde as soon the girl enters the bar. It's hard not to, really, as the whole bar seems to focus its attention on the blonde, as though there was some sort of magnetic pull to her.
Azalea can't even blame them, really. The blonde is gorgeous, blonde luscious locks, smooth creamy skin, legs that go on for miles and miles only accentuated by heels that Azalea knows she'd wouldn't be able to take a step in without falling on her face, all done in that glamorous Hollywood way of Marilyn Monroe or Grace Kelly. Except there's none of Monroe's innocent charm – this blonde looks like she's on a warpath and in need of a good drink.
Cheers, blonde girl. Azalea can sympathize. We've all been there.
So when Azalea sees the blonde get hit on by two idiots, posture stiff and uncomfortable, Azalea doesn't even think twice before intervening.
Frankly, the girl looks like she could use a break. Girls on warpaths do not come to bars in order to get hit on by guys, and these guys don't look like they're picking up any of the hints she's putting down.
There's a lot of ways to get a girl out of uncomfortable situations with guys. Azalea has it perfected down to an art form. One is to grab the girl and use the whole 'girls don't go to the bathroom alone' excuse to sneak off. Another is to just show up and start crying about a guy who cheated on her or some other nonsense, and then drag the girl with her and away from the guys to be 'comforted'. Yet another is to imply somehow that the girl has an STD – a desperate and often unwelcome measure Azalea has yet to have to resort to.
Azalea isn't a fan of perpetuating gender stereotypes, crying, or inventing diseases, though, so she generally chooses the classic "We're dating" route.
She just doesn't expect the girl to be a vampire.
Although frankly, considering her Potter luck, she shouldn't be surprised.
And a fabulous vegetarian vampire princess with an attitude, on top of that.
.
.
.
"Azalea suits you."
She stops a bit at the vampire's – Rosalie's - words.
Azalea has always struggled with her name, bit of a love hate relationship there.
The Azalea is considered "The Royalty of the Garden", and she's sure her parents had good intentions when naming her.
The Azalea symbolizes elegance, wealth, femininity, and an abundance of beauty and intelligence.
While Azalea knows she's no great beauty (Aunt Petunia has said it enough times that she has no doubts. If Dumbledore sought to prevent her from getting a big head by setting her up to live with her muggle relatives away from the fame, then he definitely nailed that one, the old codger), she likes to think she's averagely pretty. Azalea also considers herself rather smart, definitely very wealthy, and elegance has been beaten into her by Aunt Cissa once the Malfoy nee Black found out Azalea's role as the new Lady Black.
(You can put any piece of seemingly useless and random cutlery in front of Azalea, and she will recognize it. She can differentiate the dinner fork, the fish fork, the luncheon fork, the salad fork, the seafood fork, and even the more specialized forks like the fruit fork, the snail fork, the strawberry fork (because apparently strawberries aren't bloody fruits anymore), the lobster fork, and the ice cream fork.
Excellent use of her time, that.)
The azalea also symbolizes wishing to return home, caring for family, fragile and burgeoning passion.
And isn't that just hilarious.
Azalea has always thought this ironic, for she has no home to return to, no family to care for or be cared by, and the hesitant passion she had allowed herself to experience died along with her lover at the Battle of Hogwarts.
Her name mocks her.
Most ironic of all, however, is the azalea's final meaning.
When given in a black vase, the Azalea is a death threat.
A death threat.
Azaleas are incredibly toxic. Even honey drawn from them is a life-threatening poison, and Azalea can't help but give a sharp, barked laugh at how very bloody fitting her name is.
Yes, Azalea supposes her name does suit her.
.
.
.
To Azalea's pleasant surprise, she has a good time with the Hollywood vampire princess.
After they leave the bar with the two idiots, Azalea leads Rosalie to a place with the best margaritas. The music is good – though Azalea is still getting used to muggle American's more rowdy tastes. In the Wizarding World classical pieces dominate all social spaces, with the occasional slightly more modern but still rather classy Weird Sisters or maybe the British National Frog Choir. Azalea finds them bar stools right next to the bar's sink, and politely looks away from Rosalie and the bar in order to give the blonde vampiress ample opportunity to discretely throw her drink away at regular intervals.
Knowing how annoying it can sometimes be to deal with a drunk, and rarely indulging in true loss of control herself, Azalea monitors her sobriety levels by using magic to metabolize the alcohol she ingests.
She and Rosalie talk all night long, both of them giving carefully edited life stories, but laughing raucously and making fun of all of the men brave or dumb enough to approach them.
At the end of the night, they both go their separate ways, but with each other's numbers carefully saved on their phones.
A/N: Here we get a look at Azalea's perspective. She is indeed a bit bitter at the moment, and I can see her and Rosalie getting on like a house on fire. Romance will come, but right now I'm kind of low-key just happy with this friendship.
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