Description
"But I love you!", Anna shouted desperately, wiping the waterfall of tears that cascaded from her cheek. "Darling, you're mistaking love with mere infatuations." "Tell me then, what separates mere infatuations from love?", she inquired breathlessly. He stepped closer, his voice nothing but a bare whisper. "In infatuation, you feel as though you are in the Gardens of Eden themselves. Every passing second is a miniature incarnation of euphoria. As soon as you see that person, your insides light up, your heart starts beating faster, and you enter a bubble of protection where nothing goes askew, a bubble that love mercilessly shatters. When you're in love, you know real pain. Each moment is nothing but a misery, where your heart enters a perpetual loop of aching, breaking, and healing. You feel as though someone has poured gasoline over your heart and soul and set it ablaze. When you're in love, you burn and burn until you become nothing but black dust." Anna came forward, cupping the boy's face and staring deeply into his rheumy eyes before gently whispering, "Well, that's good then because I turn to ashes every time I think about you." -------------------- As a child, Anastasia Nikolaev had been taught one thing by her mother, "When you turn of age, you are to marry none but a respectable, affluent, pure-blood. After all, royals are only to wed royals, and we wouldn't want you disgracing the family name by doing so otherwise." From the very beginning, it was vaguely established that Anna was to marry one of the black brothers, but she didn't know which one. Thus, in her six years at Hogwarts, she looked at the two of them as both friends and prospects of marriage. Entering her seventh year, her perception of them changed. No longer were they just prospects of marriage but boys she could love as more than friends. The problem was, however, whom was she merely infatuated with and whom did she verily love?
Preface
