She was watching the swans soaring over the brightly lit lake.
It was like watching life itself enfold; observing the two who brought up a community, those who held responsibility on their shoulders, eating of the weaker ones below them.
At least swans behaved nicer than humans; humans raped, pillaged, killed and tortured.
She should be the one to know, the girl who watched The Dark Lord take away so much that she could have loved, so much that she'd rather go a lifetime dead than realizing again.
At some point she'd confess that she was lost in this chaos of life given and life to be taken, but there was frankly nothing that she could do.
White swans, gliding across the brightly lit surface, dancing like two lovers in the back of her memory.
A strong male with feathers so white that they almost held a silvery shimmer, eyes piercing his mate. She was the subdued one, bowing her neck happily for him. Sparkling memory, gowns and masks. The past stinging like needles before she envision the blood flow like strong rivers, all the way though the great hall.
With a hand, pale as morning snow, she reached out into the open space, trying to touch what wasn't there. It wasn't in her cards to be the one who lived a steady life, she knew that. Perhaps in someone else's eyes she did, but for her this mass of strangers' hands didn't really seem like something particularly steady.
She was given, handed over like a piece of meat. She knew that she'd never be anything more than that, not in the eyes of her uncle, not in the eyes of her
society.
She was in fact an orphan. An orphan of high blood status, carefully placed in the hands of her Dark uncle, a man who'd rather count galleons than talk to his precious niece.
Mina Ophelia Lestrange.
Daughter of Wolfgang Lestrange and Astra Lestrange, and then taken in by Roman Lestrange. Dearest uncle, dearest Dark uncle.
It wasn't exactly the most optimal position to be in, though it did secure her all that money and fame.
She was a seventeen year old girl, a sixth-grader so to speak, though it was just now that she'd start at Hogwarts. It wasn't a secret that her uncle was rather strict, especially since he truly was of the old school. A man like him preferred to keep his little niece at home, home-schooling her rather than to let young men behold her porcelain skin.
A fifty year old father, a loyal Death Eater of the Dark Lord. "To the death for our glorious Master - to the death of us."
She would admit it; this had affected her life tremendously. Of course it had affected all of them; her, Rodolphus and Rabastian. They were doomed to a certain way of life; born without a free choice. Rodolphus and Rabastian would become pretty little Death Eaters; she'd become a nice little wifey for someone powerful enough. They couldn't envision a different path of life, maybe that was for the best. It was best not to envision anything less than the darkness that was to come.
But now it was time for her to attend Hogwarts, mostly because she truly had set her mind to it, and nothing was going to make her change it. Though Master Roman always would be the head of the house, he did have to listen to his persistent niece now and then. And her blasted cousin, and so called "brother",
Rodolphus, wanted her to finally be a part of his little world, in the year of 1971.
A glass shattering sound was heard from the third floor in the giant Lestrange mansion. Knowing there would be more, and then sounds of apparations, and then a barking uncle, she stood up from her chair. Rabastian, poor dear, was just eleven years old, clumsy and nervous like a mouse in a lions' den, and his brother was a rather... Well, he was a show off, a bully.
The recipe of those two boys mixed together was a lot of crashed objects, a pouting Rabastian and a very angry Roman. It wasn't the fact that the boys played like boys did that bothered her uncle, more the fact that they kept ruining things. The man was a rather aged father, a father that didn't appreciate his sons ruining his precious carpets, the sculptures, and the house elves.
As expected, she heard her uncle yelling at the two boys, pointing out how incapable of living a decent life they were. None of them would take it to the heart; they were all used to Roman Lestranges' anger and yelling.
A family trait, really.