Sorry for the long wait!

It's mostly filler, though.

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Looking back on it, she didn't remember much about those days.

Ophelia was distantly aware that aunt Petunia and she hadn't always this good a relationship. She remembered cold, lonely nights spent in a tight place, the constant ache in her stomach preventing her from falling to sweet slumber. She remembered singing wispy spider softly under her breath with an almost dry throat, pretending that someone was singing it to her while she played with spiderwebs. She remembered the sweat and fatigue on her body as she took care of the garden under the unforgiving heat of the sun.

But only when the fever and illness raged over her body and mind, after all, there wasn't much to distract with when you were so utterly weak that you couldn't even go to the bathroom without assistance, was there? of course, the majority of the time was spent unconscious and tired, but the only things she could do when she couldn't fall asleep was brood. Not a nice habit, she knew, but it somehow stuck.

She hated being sick since that will eternally mean being miserable and wretched. Ophelia, like any other human being, detested being sad.

She customarily always had a long list of things to do in between cooking and doing chores with Aunt Petunia in the morning and singing practice, ballet, and her music lessons in the afternoon. That was why her favorite part of the day was evening, where aside from cooking dinner and a body massage to uncle Vernon whenever he was in a foul mood, regularly consisted of embroidering while engaging in all varieties of talk — from small talk to talking about literature to gossip and everything — with Aunt Petunia or play video games or watch a movie with Dudley. Granted, giant robots or evil monsters were simply not her genres but she fairly liked trash talking them to spite her darling cousin off.

He was very amusing whenever he turned pepper red in anger or embarrassment. He couldn't even complain to his parents considering Ophelia knew how to be clever with her words and his parents, or were either completely agreeing with her or just believed that if Dudley couldn't handle such inane insults, then he would never survive in the business world.

Or he faced it like a man, or he tucked his tails between his legs like a pathetic coward. That always got him to shut up, a very constipated expression stamped on his face as though the simple act of thinking through the wisdom in his father's words was an impossibly complicated task itself.

Well, that and the rather passionate rant that followed.

A sudden bout of dizziness made her clench her eyes tightly, seeing spots of colors from the tail of her eyes amidst the darkness.

She let out a moan of pain, trembling from the sheer frustration she felt.

Please, let it end.

She opened her a crack when she heard the door open, only to see everything in fast motion and repetitive. It felt as though time was slipping from her fingers like sand and that she was being left back. Alone.

The last thing she remembered was the cloying scent of warm, honeyed tea.

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"Complete blasphemy! That old fossil's brain must have crumbled to pieces already if he chose that idiot over me. 'More diplomatic', what a load of birds shit!" Uncle Vernon's face was almost purple in indignation and rage as he ranted about being dismissed for the promotion over a colleague of his, Mr Cobbler if she wasn't mistakes.

To be honest, Ophelia actually liked that man, having met him during one of the boring, stiff parties Uncle Vernon dragged them to.

He was witty if a bit awkward, but he was polite and didn't breach upon other's privacy. Not to mention that he had gifted her a very informative book about business handling for Christmas instead of giving something to her uncle.

She hadn't expected it and she thought that it hadn't been for her in the first place but for Dudley, but she guessed that her cousin's appearance and behavior hinted the man enough that his book wouldn't be appreciated and would most likely be left to gather dust, at best, and thrown away like trash, at worse.

"Vernon!" Aunt Petunia's scandalized gasp broke of his rant, as the woman stared disapprovingly at him, pausing at frying the bacons.

Her Uncle still grumbled about unfairness under his breath but acquiesced at the silent demand.

"Go get the papers, 'phelia." He said to her just as loud footsteps thundered down from the stairs. She nodded as she chewed on a piece of strawberry dripped in chocolate sauce, standing up slowly.

Aunt Petunia strictly prohibited her from helping her cook considering her still less than stellar health, but told her to at least attend the music lessons if she was well enough for it.

Fortunately it was summer vacation already, or Ophelia would have lost a lot of lessons.

She exited the kitchen, brushing past her yawning cousin without a single glance.

It was a nice cloudy day, perfect for a picnic in the park, or if you had more free time and a car, out in the countryside.

A few kids bicycled down the street, loud laughter from their mouths as she took the mail.

Hmm, a commercial about living room decoration, electric bills, water bills, commercial... She paused just outside the kitchen door when he gaze landed on an old and expensive looking envelope, eyeing in wonder the fancy sigil. It was of for animals, a lion, a snake, a badger and a raven.

But the more curious thing about it was the fact that it was addressed to her.

What was it? She didn't think it was a joke, for the parchment — because Ophelia, in good conscience, couldn't call it paper — was a hard to come by material and quite expensive, too, and why would anyone waste it for a joke?

Before she could continue her study of the heavy envelope in her hands, her uncle's booming voice caller her impatiently.

"What took you so long? What, did you find a ticking time bom—" he stopped as he gaped with wide, disbelieving eyes at her.

No, not at her but at the thick letter cradled in her hands.

Aunt Petunia turned around to see what had caused the sudden silence, only to have a similar reaction, paling noticeably as she looked closer and closer to fainting, a hand gripping the counter to not fall on the floor due to her trembling knees.

Ophelia felt like she had brought a ticking time bomb close to exploding, after all.

Dudley paused in his eating, surprisingly, as though sensing the abrupt tension in the air, staring quizzically at his parents.

She briefly met his dirt brown eyes, for once understanding each other enough to have a silent conversation that didn't involve grunts or insults, feeling his apprehension clearly.

The scraping of a chair broke the silence and she looked as Uncle Vernon slowly stood up, never straying his from the envelope, before in four fast strides ripped it from her hands.

Ophelia flinched at the quick movement, her back colliding harshly against the wall behind her, staring wide eyed at the almost crazed like expression frozen on her uncle's face.

She followed numbly when she was tossed carelessly in the living room, uncaring of her cousin's confused and demanding spluttering.

She sat vacantly on the carpeted floor, her mind replaying the scene and various possible scenarios of what worse could have happened.

She shivered lightly.

She just knew that some big changes were going to happen sooner rather than later. She didn't know if it would be a good or bad one, though.

Ophelia guessed that she would just have to see and reserve judgment the moment the waves clashed and see what they brought ashore.

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"But Vernon! What if they — " His mum's voice sounded weird, like when she would hear some gossip from one of their neighbors and she would cover her mouth with a hand to hide the gleeful smile decorating her lips.

But more...panicked, he guessed unsurely, and frightened, like those kids he snagged his other snacks from whenever he got hungry again since his mum wouldn't let him bring to school some chocolate bars or candies.

He couldn't hear his dad's reply, just a strange mix of jumbled mutterings next from his parents.

He huffed, giving up on his plan to discover the super big secret his parents were hiding from him.

Them, he corrected reluctantly, as he warily glanced at his stupid cousin.

She'd been sitting on the rug flthe whole time, not even throwing him a cool, snide remark or two as usual.

Well, at least the insults were better than the arched eyebrow and the small, mocking smile she sometimes graced him with.

Much, much better.

Dudley shuddered faintly when he remembered his cousin's scarier moments. He just knew that she wasn't normal.

No one but him could see the abnormality in her, not even his parents, who hanged out with her almost as much time as him.

But still, how could anyone miss the cold eyes and weird happenings around Ophelia?

She was an alien, sent here from the outer space in a spying mission so that they would all know their weaknesses and take whole advantage of it when the inevitable invasion happened.

How unlucky were they that of all the people in the world, it just had to be his family that was cursed to have this alien baby, ten years ago?

After all, mummy didn't really have a sister that died in a car crash while drunk with her idiot husband, and the alien really wasn't in any way related to them at all.

They must have hypnotized his parents on that cold November night to make them believe those stupid lies, but thankfully for them, they had been gifted with an amazing son like him and Dudley will do anything to save the earth from the future alien invasion.

Even if the alien scared him a lot. If only people would snap out of it and realize the truth, then maybe he wouldn't be all alone in this.

It was so simple.

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A.N.

Sooooo... As I've said before, I'm really sorry for procrastinating a lot. Seriously, my horoscope said that this year I'll take my procrastinating proficiency to a black belt.

Let's just say that I haven't been very happy at reading that. Siriusly, who the fuck would? Even if I know that I am doing exactly that, lol. My grades at school are proof enough, but I'm just always really really tired these days, you know? I had to remain out after school cuz I needed to be there when the temporary babysitter of my siblings aka the ex co-worker of my mum took my bratty siblings from school since they're shy all that jazz and I'm a minor so I can't take them by myself cuz the teacher would bitch about it to me. Hey, can't you reserve the bitchin for the parents the adults, please?

Also considering that my school finishes or at one or two on and my house is far one long hour of public transportation away and my siblings school finishes at 4:30 pm, if I did go home, all I'd have would be 30 frickin minutes of rest so in total, just a large waste of time and effort.

Not to mention that the public transportations are always full after the children's school time and geez, my little siblings just can't stop arguing every single second and don't know the definition of a respectable volume level is non-existent.

Fortunately, this week I hadn't had to do that, which I had to do since September, the start of the school year here in Italy. Gosh, I really hope that it will continue this way.

Oops, sorry for the long rant but I needed it and I know that most of will most likely just skip it or something.

Buuut! Question: what's your horoscope sign or simbol (whatever it's called)?

My answer: I'm a proud Libra, the balance one and only non living simbol in the horoscope. Gosh, I feel extremely stupid for not remembering how it's called. Shame on me, lol.