Post by Casimir Elias Karkaroff on Nov 11, 2020 5:53:20 GMT -7
November 2025 – Prague
Winter had come to Prague. The night was quiet, except for the pounding of sheets of rain on the pavement outside. The hallways were dark, every light extinguished as the occupants of Karkaroff Manor settled in for the night and the whole city darkened to wait out the storm. But Cas had never needed a guiding light to navigate the winding hallways of his childhood home. For the first years of his life, the darkness had been welcoming – inviting shadows to slip into where his drunk father couldn’t follow him. He could be gone for hours, lingering in unused rooms or settled by the window until it was safe to slip back into bed just before dawn.
As he got older, the wandering became less a source of escape from his family as from reality altogether. It seemed responsibility always followed him, latching onto him with its extra weight and whispered threats of severe consequences if he failed to shoulder the burden properly. First it had been about looking after his siblings, a task his mother seemed uninclined to do. Then it had been about keeping the family’s tattered reputation intact and restoring its place among the European elite. The secrets might have started out well-intentioned, Cas couldn’t be quite sure, but then it had become a pattern and then a habit. Now they were as ingrained into his being as anything else.
There had been a time, just after graduation, that Cas had thought he could outrun his family’s heavy expectations. Reality had since robbed him of that notion, the more his mother retreated into the lifestyle of a recluse and the family status slipped from uncertain to troublesome depths. The visits home became more frequent, from once a year (and only to ensure his letters were being received and instructions followed) to every few months. He hated visiting Prague, but he hated passing off the burden of being head of the family to his siblings even more. It might sound terribly sentimental, but he reassured himself that it was only because neither of his brothers could do what was needed to bring the family forward – they would only ever try and make the family what it had once been.
But the memories were a terrible burden, and the visits always ended in arguments. Cas got his way, he had long since learned how to always get his way, but it came at the price of a forced distance between himself and his siblings. Fine – Cas had never been the sort to rely on his family for any sort of guidance or assistance. His mother had proven herself incapable of it years ago, and he’d kept so many secrets from his siblings that to reveal them now would only ever be to his detriment. And he couldn’t stand the thought of revealing such vulnerability to anyone, but especially the ones who’d known him all his life. They’d see more, and being seen was a weakness he couldn’t afford.
And what was one more secret? Cas knew he would have to leave soon, because the topic of his father had arisen again at breakfast and Cas could feel the first tiny crack in his mask appearing after days of puzzled uncertainty. As far as they were concerned, as far as they would ever be concerned, Oskar Karkaroff was missing. Run off, disappeared, abandoned them yet again. Because they could never know what he knew. So, as Cas wandered the hallways, surrounded by an impenetrable darkness only broken at occasional intervals by lightning, he knew tomorrow would be his last day home. It was safe to assume (not that he ever did much of that anyway) that he wouldn’t be missed much. It was a telling sign that everybody had stayed here and only he had left. On the surface level, only one Karkaroff had ever shown a desire to leave the fortress, even if it nowhere near revealed the deep repulsion he had for the society that had created him.
Cas lingered in front of a closed door that was beginning to show signs of wear. His mother’s study, not that she ever used it much. No, the chips in the paint and brittleness of the door were testament to how many times Cas had slammed it behind him growing up – and the even greater amount of times he’d left it purposely ajar, knowing she would have to get up to slam it behind him. When he had been little, she could always scare him into submission, but after starting at Durmstrang his spine had grown more rigid and there had been more iron to his words. And there was always an argument to be had – ‘look at these expenses, mama! You need to work…’ or ‘she’ll be attending Durmstrang with us, far away from you!’. He had known curse-breaking would be his career of choice for years, but the knowledge had done nothing to help him growing up as his mother blew through the family’s vault and refused to leave the house. Eventually he’d had to take drastic measures, because what was the alternative? What self-respecting pureblood teen would get a summer job?
Even in the knowledge that he was alone, Cas couldn’t let his face betray the discomfort of those memories, so he silently continued down the hallway and left them behind. Eventually he arrived to the entrance hall, and, mired in the past as he was, could almost see his siblings lined up with their cloaks and school trunks by the door as they showed him their completed packing lists. The inspections had seemed an unnecessarily strict measure, but if they forgot something there was no guarantee they would see it again until the summer – unreliable as his mother was, and with him having had to dismiss the last of the staff during his fifth year. But not a fact his siblings had needed to know – it was alright to hate him, but almost unbearable to think of them knowing the full truth of their family situation.
There were fewer secrets now than there had been then, naturally, but even so it had become an impulse to give them only a watered-down version of anything that occurred. And of course, they knew almost nothing of his own life abroad. That was by design, even if it created an almost unbridgeable distance between them. Cas had no qualms with secrets that were meant to protect – either them or him – but the knowledge of what he did first for the Order then Ouroboros was not hidden for that reason but because they just weren’t ready. He could admit that he hoped…but it almost seemed too late.
He moved to look out one of the nearest windows at the relentless downpour and inhaled deeply as he cleared his mind of the unwelcome thoughts. Returning to Prague always put him in a melancholic mood, thinking about how the past could have been different and worrying ceaselessly about the future. There was no other cure than to go far, far away and banish all thoughts of his family until the next time his presence was needed. It didn’t seem like a sustainable system, but it had gotten them all this far. Happiness didn’t seem possible, but they’d reached some sense of stability, and that was an improvement from 10 years ago. And in the end, moving one step forward was better than nothing at all. Someday Cas would get his family where they needed to be, looking towards the future for once rather than staying stuck in the past…even if it was becoming increasingly impossible to do alone.
