Slytherin Daughter
By: Gothic Lolita 009, aka Hayley Macrae
Beta: MadameSnapeRhapsody
Rating: K to K+
Summary: AU Post Deathly-Hallows. Severus Snape and Remus Lupin mysteriously returned from the dead roughly a decade ago. Now a new student has appeared at Hogwarts, sorted into Slytherin, bearing an uncanny resemblance to someone who is both alive and dead.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters, locations, and the like belong to J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers. They are used without permission and no attempt whatever is being made to copyright any material herein.
A/N: I have never been more excited about a long project as I have been about this one. I hope that everyone will enjoy this. Please, PLEASE leave reviews; the good, the bad and the ugly. My readers will tell you that I respond to all reviews. I DO take people's ideas, opinions and whatnot into account. Also, a special thanks to my great good friend Manda for her comments and suggestions, which make this fic much more better.
Prologue: The Visitor
Rhiannon Delaney sat in the window of the Princeton Asylum for Orphans, curled up like a ball. From her spot, she watched the other children fight, laugh, play, and generally interact with one another.
As for herself, she knew better than that now. It was better for her to stay away from everyone. Rhiannon was a strange enough name, but the things she did—or could do—were another thing entirely.
Rhiannon was a tall, skinny, pale girl of ten. Her straight black hair, growing freely for all the time she had been alive, was braided to keep it out of her face. She had long, angular features, a slender neck, and a pouty little mouth. She was gangly and scrawny, but had the understated beauty of a shy violet.
The Princeton Asylum for Orphans was nestled on South Street West, in the town of Brighton, just off the southern coast of England. It was a bustling town. The building had been completed in early 1945 and still looked as if it could have told stories of the Battle of Britain. It was an imposing place of red-brick, mortar, and spiked iron gates.
This unfortunate place was run by Miss Tabitha Minchim, a middle-aged lady with a pinched face, beady black eyes, and hair of the dirtiest blonde imaginable. She always wore it back in a bun, and moved with quick, clipped steps through her domain.
As to the children, none of them were all that bright or intelligent, as Miss Minchim only saw to it the barest necessary was done for them. They learned their reading and writing and mathematics, had shabby clothes handed down to them, and went to the church down the road of a Sunday to listen to the sermons about "fire and brimstone," from the elderly vicar.
Rhiannon was the exception to the rule. By the age of four, she could read clearly and smartly from the Bible as well as the newspaper. By the age of nine she was delving into novels, found along the way or pilfered from the other children. She also was able to tame the mice into staying out of the food stores, levitated three older children who were particular nasty to her, and accidentally set fire to another girl's dress.
It was for these latter things Rhiannon was shunned, even from the company of her peers. Taking an old woolen stocking, some rags, a needle and thread, the girl had fashioned for herself a small companion. She was named Tilly, and Rhiannon often imagined the little doll comforting her when she felt lonely.
It was Midsummer day, and with a sigh, Rhiannon turned to gaze out the window, the book she was reading falling lazily into her lap, the scrap of paper she had been using as a bookmark falling into the gap between the pages. The hair on the back of her neck began to stand on end as a somewhat shabbily dressed man came up to the gates.
'June 21st," she thought to herself, 'Midsummer Day...Will today be the day? Will I fly from here at last?'