All you do is scream inside, boy. Where's your goddamn courage?
"You are nothing more than a senile old man, dragging the family name through the mud." You sneer, handsome features become scarlet, because that vein in your neck pumps blood that is trying to escape and stain your hands, and you're desperate to be anything but your father.
"Our lineage? It's cursed, almost as bad as the Black family." You judge, like entitlement isn't also a curse or a language that you speak fluently, like your high horse couldn't topple you and all your little machineries.
"We are the byproduct of centuries of inbreeding, father. If you think we cannot get much worse than that, you have another thing coming." You rage, self-hatred running rampant in your veins like your hounds from hell race through the Nott Grounds at night, desperate to rip off arms of intruders.
Nobody but your mother and sister know about the screaming matches you have with your father. Acting like two savages, vocal chords echoing through corridors silenced by Perpetual Vows for thousands of years. It's not about what he's doing, it's the fact that you could do better.
You could do better, and that kills you inside. Because you just can't wait, can you? You cannot wait for your time to shine and get your grubby little hands on the family crown. Your thirst for power seeping from each pore, glinting in your green eyes and hiding in the shadows of your boyish face. You're too young to be the leader, and you're too old to be dismissed as unthreatening, so now you're left to your own resources.
And your argument is based on a fragile foundation, made of cracked stone that is being kept together by hardened gold. It's not a lie, no. But that's not entirely the truth either. You've never been too good at those anyway.
Well, you're made of mead, boy.
The drink of the gods: a result of fermented honey, and fermenting is just another word for rotting. You're rotten honey. Sweet, but acid. You get drunk on your own hubris.
If you need to tell yourself that your father is supporting an outsider, forgetting about your traditions... So, be it. Tell yourself that.
You can be a drunk, yes, not stupid. There's a thought snaking through the crevices of your brain, balancing doubt in the tiny point of a sharp knife.
Should you support? Or should you not?
It's a growing obsession that's been corrupting your fragile ego for years. Should you support the opposite side just to antagonize? Or should you join and prove yourself to be a much better follower than your own old man?
It's not about what's right, of course not. Why would it be? The thought doesn't even cross your mind, yet.
But you don't want to be made of a fool either, so you ask yourself who is even this Voldemort fellow. After all, if he were from a pureblood family, you would have heard about his folks sooner.
Every pureblood can trace their lineage, registered on family trees and parchments with Dark Magic older than most houses. You would have seen him in any of the dusty tapestries, would have seen portraits of his grandparents painted and showcased on oppulent walls of your friend's manors.
You ask yourself who are his parents, his ancestors. They are so worried about pureblood supremacy, but are they even making the right questions? Or any question at all?
Are you the fool? Are you the only one who can't see it? Are you making the right choice? You couldn't be. For that, you would have to make a choice, and your choice was not even choosing at all.
The aftermath of the festival prodded the knife into your skin, balancing a fragile position. You know you will have to make a decision soon. Avoiding can only be done to a certain point, and the aftermath can be secondary, but it always comes. It's a snake blackening your skin or a stain blackening your face in the tapestry.
Voldemort is just means to an end for the pureblood society. A leader and a scapegoat. He is merely saying what other people have thought for years, making waves and decisions for those who are too coward.
People like you. Who are greedy, and ambitious, and too comfortable in their thrones like a god licks drops of ambrosia running between their fingers.
All you do is scream inside, boy. What is your choice?