A/N: All the dialogue in these first few chapters is supposed to be in Italian.
The villa dominated the Italian landscape. Its whitewashed walls rose from the vineyards and shallow, rocky soil. The four walls that surrounded it were capped with sloping, red-tiled peaks. The same tiles adorned the roofs that just peeked over the walls.
Not that the Muggle tourists could see the villa anyway. No, the entire property was surrounded by various charms and enchantments designed to block the land from the Muggles' notice. Tourists coming from or going to Padua conveniently failed to notice the oldest operating villa in existence.
But right now a group of four people stood on the dirt road that lead up to the tall wooden doors set in the fifteen feet high walls. They were almost all dark, with olive-toned skin, the darkest brown hair (which would have looked black save that the sun was shining full force on them), and black eyes. The odd one out was a pale skinned man with golden-brown hair and warm hazel eyes. He had a large, tattered suitcase propped against his legs. The others, a woman, a girl, and a young man, all were carrying their baggage. The young man, who was handsome in a roguish way, was dragging a large scarlet trunk. The girl, who was small and very pretty, was handling a whicker hamper and a large cage.
They looked relatively normal. They wore normal clothes, with normal hairstyles, and fairly normal luggage. It was the creature in the bird cage (a bottle green, vulture-like bird) that showed them for what they truly were: wizards. And not just any wizards, but members of the oldest, purest, and most accomplished wizarding family in Italy: the Petrrocis. The villa, of course, was the Villa Petrroci.
"Come on, I can't stand out here in this heat much longer," the man complained, mopping his brow with his shirt sleeve. His eyes were framed by laugh lines and his mouth had a tendency to curve upward.
The four of them scrambled with the bags and began to move up the dirt road. It had been a dry summer thus far and the dust billowed out behind them. Something in the hamper the girl was carrying squalled.
"Just a little longer, Portia," the girl assured the cat-like creature inside, who ruffled its leopard-spotted fur and grumbled to itself. The green bird opened its mouth as though to agree, but no sound same forth. It was an augury, the bird infamous for its wailing cry whenever rain was coming, and the only way to keep one for a pet was to put a Silencing Charm on it.
"How does it feel to be home?" the young man asked, sweating a little as he lugged the trunk up to the doors.
"Fantastic," the woman, a stunningly beautiful creature, said warmly. It was clear that the girl was her daughter, as they shared the same attractive features.
"Well then, Aunt Antonia, Uncle Patrick, and my dearest little cousin," the young man smiled widely, pushing open the tall oak doors. "Welcome home."
There was a courtyard inside, just shadowed over by the setting sun. A band of children wearing bright colors frolicked inside, chasing red chickens who clucked and chittered and flew before the children's outstretched arms.
Across the yard rose the house, grand and imposing. A white marble staircase led to the archway that served as the main entrance to the house. The house itself rose above them in a series of balconies and arched windows topped with a red, peaked roof. A tabby cat watched the chickens hungrily from one of these windows, until a pair of hands grabbed the feline and pulled it, yowling, back inside.
The mews was just visible behind the stables, where several winged horses stomped their hooves and munched on their oats. The kitchen door, which was always thrown wide open, lay off to the left of the grand staircase.
A woman with white hair and a lined face flew down the staircase now, her great age no hinderance to the movement. She threw her arms into the air and shooed the children from her path.
"Antonia!" She boomed, reaching the newcomers and embracing the woman. "You look so unhealthy. England does not agree with you. Ah, my beautiful Bella, you are too pale. Does the sun never come out in that country? And... oh. It's you." The woman crossed her thin arms over her chest and surveyed the man.
"Yes, it's me," he said cheerfully, completely unfazed by her lack of enthusiasm. "Kiss for your nephew-in-law?" The older woman snorted and turned from him, enveloping the girl in her embrace. The heavy shawl the woman wore made her grand-niece squirm a little in the heat.
"It's wonderful to see you, Great-Aunt Guilia," the girl told her.
"Oh, my Bella," the woman chuckled. "So polite! And with such good manners. You're mother taught you very well. I suppose it is dreadful being in England, where they are all barbarians." Great-Aunt Guilia was still in the mind-set of a Roman. She believed Italy was the only civilized country, the Greeks were the only good tutors, and everyone else was a barbarian.
"Well, come inside, come inside!" she urged them all. "Here let me help you with-" But when she tried to take the hamper from Isabella, the creature inside it howled.
"I'm sorry, Great-Aunt!" the girl said, hastily reclaiming the hamper. "Portia doesn't like magical transportation."
"Well, what kind of cat would she be if she did?" the woman said knowingly.
"It's interesting you should ask that, because she's not actually a cat..." the man began, but he fell silent as the woman gave him a poisonous look.
"Did you get my Christmas present?" she demanded out of the blue.
"Yes, it has wonderful illustrations of the poisonous fungi of Finland," he thanked her.
"Hmph," was all she said. Then she turned and led her niece and her husband inside.
"Unc'e Ale!" one of the children screamed, breaking away from the pack. She was a tiny thing, with a bright yellow sundress half-coated in mud. "Aunt Isabella!" The young man, Alessandro, scooped her up and twirled her around. She giggled and patted his cheek.
"Isabella, where had you been?" she said in a serious voice, wagging her finger at the girl when Alessandro stopped spinning.
"I've been at school, little Adalina," Isabella told her yet again. "In England."
"England very bad place. Very bad," Adalina said, clearly trying to sound very grown up. "Grandmother told me so."
"England isn't so bad, little flower," Alessandro told her, tickling her mercilessly. "But you will be if you don't clean up for dinner." With that, the man sent the entire pack of nephews, nieces, and second-cousins scrambling for their baths.
"You'd best get settled in," he told his cousin. "Grandfather wants to see you after dinner."
"How much does he know?" Isabella asked nervously.
"Oh, you know Grandfather," Alessandro winked. "He knows a lot more than he lets on."
AN: Well, here it is. The sequel. I hope you enjoy another year with Isabella!