A/N: Hello my baby unicorns. You are beautiful, and I love you. Alright, now that I've got that off my chest... Read away? Or not? I don't know your life...
Dislaimer: I am not J.K Rowling as much as I wish I was. I mean, that woman is LOADED.
Adra Plione Nicoli was born on the 31st of October, Halloween night, the most haunted night of the year. She lived in Ashbane, Scotland from the age of three to eleven. Ashbane was the quietest village in all of Scotland, where no one would dare look for the Nicolis, and that was ideal. Ashbane, nestled deep in the Cheviot Hills near the border of Britain and Scotland, was a snowy region, where it was cold in the winter and slightly less cold in the summer. There was a small lake, two miles from the village, where Adra and her father lived. Their house was in truth a medium-sized boat, docked at shore.
Her father wanted Adra to take after him, but his mother wanted her to take after her.
Why? She wanted Adra to take over the throne—the throne of the Sirens of Cecilia Lake, the internationally feared hunters, which her mother currently possessed.
Her mother, Plione the Beautiful, had met her father, Andreas Nicoli, when he came to research the Cecilia Sirens. They fell in love, and Adra was the result. So Andreas made himself a permanent resident of Cecilia Lake, living on their boat, Adra spending weekends in the Siren City beneath the waves.
Her life was difficult. Her classmates were scared of her, for she rarely spoke and no one knew who she was, or better yet, where she came from. She was an enigma, the most beautiful girl in the class, with skin like snow, lips like blood, and hair black as night. And her eyes, the most piercing powder blue, like ice. Yet still they shied from her. She knew everyone thought her father was crazy, never leaving his boat, like a hermit. He just didn't like associating with Muggles much, since their ways were so confusing.
Next to her classmate's disdain, it was the transformations she went through. They were very painful. Her legs glued together and silvery scales grew over her entire body. The scales were so small and pale that they more resembled shimmering, white-as-snow human skin. That was pretty bad, like a creeping crawling insect choking her in a blanket. But when her gills erupted from her neck, it was much worse. Not to mention the fins that sprung from the middle and end of her tail and the webbing that formed between her fingers, then the spikes that grew out of her forearm. But then the worst will have passed. Her hair turns a navy blue and starts to elongate, tickling what used to be her waist as her nostrils close.
This is when she really needs to get in the water, in order to breathe. And so that's when the relief always comes. Above water, Adra always feels like she is breathing through a straw. In water, when she goes to visit her mother and her friend Nineve, that's when she can really inhale.
Her father told her who she was as soon as she could understand. Cecilia Sirens are the most humanoid, and known for their immense beauty, which lures even wizards to their doom. A Cecilian's voice is what gets most of their victims, though. To the ears of Muggle's, it is completely irresistable. What a Cecilian says, or sings rather, a Muggle will do, no matter what. To wizards, though, it is only a pretty voice. This is why Adra has rarely spoke, she could cause very difficult problems.
Andreas Nicoli worried very much for his beloved daughter's fate. He desperately wanted her to be a wizard, like him. He wanted to have something in common with her, other than their raven hair. But Adra never showed a hint of magical talent, not one magical slip-up of any kind. So when Adra was seven, he wrote to the Ministry and explained about her special circumstances. Reproducing with a Cecilian was supposed to be strictly forbidden, because Cecilians were so dangerous.
And so a Ministry official was sent to evaluate Adra to see if she had any potential to be dangerous. There were only a few hiccoughs in his stay, but he left without giving Andreas an answer to whether or not she would be allowed to attend school.
They waited and they waited. Adra turned eight. No word from the Ministry. Age nine, she watched from the kitchen table as her cereal bowl moved closer to her of its own accord. She did not tell her father and he did not notice. Age ten, still no word. Adra watched as a boy who had been teasing her started to erupt in raging boils. She did not let anyone know. Perhaps, if she suppressed the things she could do and never tell anyone, she would be allowed to stay with her family. Age eleven.
October 30th
Adra walked home from school struggling to breathe. Her chest ached, her head hurt, and she felt faint. She needed to get underwater, and soon.
It had been a solid two weeks since she'd visited her mother. They'd had a row—Plione had confronted her and told her that if she didn't go to the magic school, she had to live with the Cecilians. Adra had refused. She didn't want to go to the wizard school, but she absolutely didn't want to live completely under the waves. She would miss her father too much. She felt torn—she had to either leave her father to study magic she didn't even want to learn, or she had to desert her father to fully live with her mother and train to be a ruler.
Then again, Adra wasn't even sure she would get into the school, since the Ministry of Magic worker still hadn't gotten back to them with results. Maybe she wouldn't get a letter at all, and wouldn't that be wonderful.
Adra reached the dock above the placid lake and noticed their boat only in its absence. Looking closer, she saw a faint outline on the horizon and realized that her father must be talking with her mother, which he hadn't done since Plione had delivered her to the boat nearly eleven years ago. Adra worried. Something big must've happened for her mother to agree to a conversation with Andreas. Adra nimbly swung into the one-person rowboat and placed her school bag next to her. Pulling the oars from the floor, she untied the boat from the dock and shoved off, hoping against hope that such unprecedented discussion between her parents didn't mean what she thought it meant.
When she reached the boat, fog was starting to roll over the eerie, perpetually calm lake. Adra hoisted her body from the tied up rowboat to the ladder that lead up to her home. As she climbed, her backpack on her back, the cold of the metal rungs seeped through her wool gloves and turned her hands to ice. Cold bit at her face and nose and climbing the ladder became more difficult. As she sped up, trying to get off of the freezing side of the boat, her hands slipped from the rung she was reaching for, which was coated with a fine, invisible layer of very slippery ice. With dread dropping like a stone in her throat, Adra tumbled from the side of the boat and splashed into the icy, frigid waters.
The effect was almost immediate. She felt her skin crawling as the scales wrapped her legs together and covered her in shining new skin. Fangs erupted from her teeth and her neck began to ache and throb, then feel as if on fire as her gills emerged. Her eyes glazed over for protection from the water and her hair went from black to navy blue and fell to her waist.
