DISCLAIMER: Nothing you can recognise is mine. I'm just having a bit of fun.

This story was written for Pottersues' Seventh Annual Fanfiction Contest, and it was awarded second place. Thanks to everyone who reviewed. Your words did encouraged me to write and work hard in the story. Even though the speshulness and the Mary Sues were deliberate, I did put a lot of honest effort into writing something midly entertaining, so if you enjoyed it and told me about it, you made me happy.


I looked into the mirror and a beautiful fifteen year old returned my gaze. I was sporting the face of my alter ego, the face my mother made me wear to my job everyday. I concentrated, and my pretty chocolate brown locks turned into straight, white-blonde hair while my bright green eyes became cold, sparkling grey. I had been too tired to morph back to my natural looks the night before. The last performance had ended unexpectedly late, and I hadn't had the energy to return to the looks that betrayed me as a Malfoy.

"Lavinia!" I heard my mother's call from downstairs. I checked my watch. The Sun and Saturn were aligned in the tenth house; I was obviously late for breakfast.

Before I rushed to meet my mother and my grandmother, I opened my bedroom window and let the cool summer breeze in. Our ample house on the Lake District was generally very cool, but my bedroom faced east, and the weak Sun would heat the glass in the windows and make the temperature of my room raise unless I opened them.

I went down the stairs as fast as I could, jumping every second step. My grandmother was a very severe woman, and she disliked it when I was late for meals.

"Good morning," I said as I entered the breakfast room and took my place at the table.

"You arrived quite late last night," my grandmother said with a scowl. She was a witch in her sixties and she was still very beautiful. She had short blonde hair up in a strict, elegant bun, and brown eyes that could be warm or cold according to whom she was speaking. She, my mother and I shared the same build, we all had thin, yet slightly curvy bodies. She also had all sorts of charms and potions that helped her to age gracefully. It was almost a pity that she had retired herself from society forever when my grandfather Abraxas died. She had stopped going out to great social functions when my uncle Abraxas Junior died during the last war, and moved away from Malfoy Manor to help my mother raise me here in the Lake District cottage when I was born. But save close family and friends, she rarely stepped out of the house anymore, and not many people ever came here (except her card games friends, of course).

"We are working very hard," I said, trying to appease her anger. "I am lead, after all."

"Are you tired, love?" my mother asked sympathetically. "We should have let you sleep late "

"Nonsense, Lucia," my grandmother said. "The girl should learn to come home at a decent hour. I hope you were disguised from beginning to end; if someone notices a Malfoy working in that harlot house "

"The WADA is one of the best wizarding drama schools in existence" I said coldly. "And I am the lead actress of 'Magically Blonde: The Musical'. I am not a harlot."

I felt my eyes water in anger and frustration as my grandmother prepared to retaliate, but fortunately we were interrupted by the familiar 'pop!' of our house-elf.

"Message from Miss Narcissa," said Milly with her high-pitched voice, handing my grandmother a yellow parchment in a silver plate.

I sipped my Earl Grey slowly, trying to breathe and calm down. My mother smiled apologetically to me as my grandmother read in silence the letter from my aunt. Like my grandmother, she was also very beautiful. In her case, youth hadn't entirely left. She was only in her early thirties. She combed her white blonde, long and straight hair every morning and every night and she loved using all sorts of cosmetics that stressed her beautiful features without making her look as if she had too much on. It was really sad that she left home even less than grandmother.

I finished my tea feeling a bit down. If it wasn't for me, everyone around this table might have led a happier life.

"Narcissa is coming for tea," my grandmother announced when she finished the letter. "I'll have to cancel tonight's card game. She says it's urgent."

She rushed to her desk, in a hurry to send owls to her friends. I directed an angry look to my mother.

"You haven't told her, have you?" I accused. "She doesn't know who paid for her last fur coat, does she? And she doesn't know who's paying for her imported luxury fruits and her hair charms?"

"I cannot tell her, love," my mother said sadly.

"You cannot tell her that it comes from my wages? That it comes from that 'harlot house'?"

"She has enough things on her mind, with Lucius in Azkaban," she said more firmly. "And she's worried about you. With the Dark Lord back in power if he finds out about your condition and about our secrets "

"I hate all those secrets!" I said angrily, run upstairs and locked myself inside my bedroom.

I knew everyone in my family hated that I was an actress. My uncle Lucius had forbidden me to use the family name, so for the stage I was Lavinia Smith. My whole existence was a bit of a secret, after all, so becoming a public figure hadn't been a very bright choice.

I had hardly ever been out of the Lake District cottage. I was home-schooled in magic since I was a small child, due to my condition. I was sheltered my entire life. Only a privileged few knew of my existence, paid by my uncle to keep me away from the public eye. So of course my uncle was furious when the Daily Prophet published my photograph with the caption "WADA's new emerging young talent". I was under my disguise, but still recognizable for those who knew me.

I had spent the last two years studying and working at WADA. They only take people from fifteen onwards, but, as a metamorphmagus, I auditioned looking older, and I displayed such a natural talent that they decided to make an exception when I told them I was actually too young. After all, it's very convenient to have a metamorphmagus in any theatre company. It didn't take me long to become an accomplished actress, singer and dancer. Serena, the lead character in 'Magically Blonde: the Musical' was the most important part I had ever played. My life hadn't been easy, and it was only now that I was starting to enjoy it.


Aunt Narcissa arrived late and looking the worse for wear. I hadn't seen her since Uncle Lucius had been sent to Azkaban, and the change in her looks was remarkable.

We had tea almost completely in silence, only asking a few polite questions about her and Draco's health. It was only when Milly took the tea things away that my aunt started talking.

"I come here on an errand from the Dark Lord," she whispered to me, my grandmother and my mother. The room suddenly got colder. "He has given Draco a mission, and he wants Lavinia to assist him."

The three of us exchanged a look of pure terror.

"But I don't want to do that," I said weakly.

"I am afraid it is not optional," Aunt Narcissa said, as if she was confessing a fatal illness. "He wants you inside Hogwarts by the first of September."

"Oh, no " I cried, covering my face with my hands and allowing a few tears to escape.

"Does he know?" My mother chocked her own tears. "About her condition?"

"No, as far as I know," Aunt Narcissa said. "I didn't tell him, and I don't think Lucius would have. I'm sorry, Lucia."

I embraced my mother and allowed her to comfort me. This was my way of consoling her.

"How are we supposed to get her into Hogwarts?" My grandmother said. "She's always been home-schooled; Dumbledore won't allow her to start in fifth year "

"We'll find a way, Alcmene," Narcissa said. "Maybe Lucia can convince him that the school is safer for Lavinia than this house. As a last resource, the Blacks have always had a seat in the Board of Governors "

"So did us, if my idiotic brother hadn't lost it " My mother mumbled.

"They can't deny us entrance. We'll get her in, or it'll be the last thing we do."

For the second time in the day, I ran up to my bedroom and locked myself in. I landed on my bed, and let the tears soak my pillow.

Hours later, I got up and looked at myself in the mirror. I was, quite possibly, the unluckiest girl in the world. I had grown up locked inside the house because I was my mother's embarrassing teenage mistake. I had been forbidden to go to school because I was born with this dangerous condition, the reason why the dragon blood hadn't worked when my mother drank it before her first trimester was over and the reason why I hadn't been given away after my birth. The reason why I had never been told who my father was- I was the bastard child who worked at the harlot house, and I would never be anyone else.


It was only after Lavinia had locked herself in her room that Narcissa dared to enquire the truth from her sister and mother-in-law.

"Have you told her yet?" she whispered. The candle-light reflected in her hair made it look orange, as if she was on fire.

"About her father?" Lucia said. "No. I don't want her to know."

"And about the prophecy?"

"Either," Alcmene said. Her commanding voice sounded definite. "She shouldn't know until after it's happened. Otherwise, she'll resist it."

"Don't you think she might find out about it from other sources?"

"I'll have to tell Dumbledore to keep his mouth shut, then," Lucia said firmly.

"It's a good thing the Dark Lord hasn't heard about this prophecy," Narcissa sighed. "I don't know what he would do if he did "

"What about your sister?" Alcmene asked harshly. "What does she know?"

"She ignores enough." Narcissa reassured them. "If I let her know anything else, she might come and kill you all herself. Lavinia going away to Hogwarts will keep her out of harm's way, until the time is right. The two of you should go and visit Aricia in Canada."

"We might. I haven't seen her since Abraxas passed away, and that was only a few hours," Alcmene said, looking her age as the few wrinkles in her face became apparent as a shadow lingered on them.

"I wish we could take Lavinia with us," Lucia whispered. A single tear rolled down her left cheek. "Then she'd really be out of harm's way."

"But then she wouldn't accomplish her destiny. And that's the most important thing of all." The two sisters-in-law looked at each other and smiled weakly, feeling the pain of letting their children go.

"Then so be it," Alcmene dictated.