Nelina's View
She pressed her head against the wall, listening to the screams of Mother Tilns for the seventh time that day. She could almost taste the hate as it rolled off the woman's tongue, her mind desperately seeking for a happy place to seek refuge in but coming up short. "You started another food fight! I might as well just ship you off to military school because you definitely don't belong in a foster home like this one." The mother of the foster home yelled at her, spit flying everywhere as the large woman's shadow covered Nelina.
"Why don't you just send me back to the orphanage then?" She questioned looking up at the woman. whose face was turning a severely unbecoming shade of cherry red. Her tongue clicked a few times before her gaze matched her foster mother's once again.
"You spiteful brat! I should take you back." She hissed and Nelina inwardly cringed as the thought occurred to her that this was the person who decided whether she would be put back under the watchful eye of the nuns that ran the orphanage she had lived her first five years in before being transferred to Mother Tilns' home. "That's what I thought. You have one hour of being outside before you have to start on your chores again, now leave." Mother said, her voice cold as she sat behind her desk, waiting for Nelina to exit the room.
One of the younger girls came up to her, the only one who wasn't either afraid of her or there to beat her up. "Nellie, let's go to the zoo! It's not far, we can make it in our hour." The little girl smiled, revealing two missing front teeth.
"Alright Amy." Nelina sighed, the little girl cheering with excitement as her two small pigtails bobbed furiously in the air. Amy's little hand was covered by Nelina's as they snuck through the back gate. They walked quickly up the street and to the zoo, beating their record and arriving in only five minutes. "Do you want to see the reptile house?" Nelina asked, knowing it happened to be the little girl's favorite. Once again her curly ponytails bobbed up and down in excitement as Amy dragged her towards the reptile house.
They arrived to see panic all over as people rushed out of the exhibit. "SNAKE! SNAKE ON THE LOOSE!" A woman screamed as she exited quickly, her hand digging into the shoulder of her panicked looking toddler. Amy looked up at her with a devious smile and she nodded as they continued to walk into the building, pushing past the crowd of people trying to move against them.
A lone snake slithered past them, looking at her only for a moment before hissing a slight "hello" and continuing on. She shivered as the thought that it had just talked filled her mind. She pressed forward with Amy though. The last people to exit were what she would call the zoo's unfortunate couple of the day. It was an extremely fat man, with a bushy blonde mustache that highly contrasted his red face which seemed to be growing brighter as the seconds ticked on.
The man had his fat hand wrapped tightly around the petite one of a bony woman beside him, who lips were pursed giving her the look of a horse who was in pain. Her short black hair was loosely curled, giving the effect of evil cotton candy. The man was yelling at a boy whose jet black hair was in a complete disarray. The boy stared on as the man yelled, his sparkling green eyes peering out over black circular glasses. His skin was pale like her own but he didn't have the freckles that were spattered across the bridge of her nose.
A fat boy was wrapped in a blanket, shivering as water dripped from his blonde tufts of hair. He looked like a pig with a lopsided wig that had been pushed into a lake as he wrapped the blanket tighter around him. Nelina shook her head, looking at the dysfunctional family as they passed. She and Amy were the only two in the reptile house by now and Amy was looking around rather excitedly, happy that no one was there to block her view.
After only five minutes one of the zookeepers came over and told them that they weren't supposed to be in here at this time before escorting them to the exit. The girls looked at each other with a sly smile as they began to walk back to the house, still with twenty minutes of free time left.
Dumbledore's View
He walked into the small house, making sure not to trip over children as they raced past him in the horribly unkempt yard. This was not his idea of a suitable home when he had dropped the poor child off at the orphanage almost eleven years ago. It was June second and Nellie's birthday was in just three days, she would finally be old enough to attend Hogwarts. He remembered seeing her that first day, the horror on her mothers face at the illegitimate child she had just given birth to.
She was the only one of her kind, born in between both sides of war, the product of intoxication and nothing more. He remembered how she had been charmed, so that her body could hold the twins she carried, each from their own father. Neither fully blood related. It was a complicated spell, no one knowing exactly who had managed it. All anyone knew was that after a terrible fight with both of their spouses, and one drunken night, Narcissa Malfoy had given birth to two different men's children.
One of them belonging to James Potter.
He sighed thinking of the misfortune the girl had, Narcissa being so afraid of her own child that she had cast her away. The girls father never even knew of her, he surely would have taken the small girl in. Dumbledore knocked slightly on the door, still being wary of the children who now had their attention turned towards him. The door opened and a fat woman with an unsightly short brown bob opened the door.
"Hello. I am here to talk about the schooling of Miss Nelina Malfoy." He said and the woman nodded, a sly smile now on her face.
"Well sir, as you may know most of our kids are sent to public schools here in the foster system. Private schools are just much to expensive these days." The woman said and Dumbledore sighed internally. People like this were the only thing that ever managed to try his patience to the extreme.
"The school is already payed for, she has in fact a full ride, including room and board." He said, trying to remain slightly cheerful. The woman nodded curtly and let him inside, leading him to a small room filled with small articles of plastic in different colors and shapes. One little boy seemed to be rolling one back and forth on the carpet.
"Nellie isn't in yet, but she will be back in any moment. You can wait here until she returns." The woman said, her face hard as she mentioned to disappearance of the child. He nodded, looking over his half moon glasses at the door as he waited. Time ticked by slowly but a few minutes later the door swung open and a child with jet black hair and stunning crystal blue eyes walked in. She looked so much like a mix of her mother and father he couldn't help but smile.
"Nelina, hello. I am Professor Dumbledore." He said standing up and shaking the girl's hand. She was very petite and looked like she wasn't fed anywhere near enough food in this house. She lead him to her room on the instructions of the lady of the house before firmly planting herself onto the bed, where he sat next to her. "I am the headmaster of a school called Hogwarts, it's a school for people who are extraordinary like you." He said and her head tilted quizzically to the side.
"Sir, what do you mean?" Her faint voice asked him and he laughed a little before staring into her eyes, which he could now see had taints of green in the blue and silver. Her father's hazel mixed with her mother's blue he noted.
"You're a witch Nelina."
Nelina's View
The words took a moment to sink in before she began to stutter out that she couldn't possibly be a witch. "I'm sorry sir, but you must be sorely mistaken. I'm just a normal girl. In fact, I'm so normal that it's unnatural how utterly normal and boring I am!" She said and his eyes twinkled behind the half-moon shaped spectacles that rested on his face.
"Child have you ever made things happen, done things when you were mad or scared that seemed to be impossible?" He asked her, his voice kind and filled with what she sensed was adventure. It sent a chill down her spine to think of what could be ahead of her if this was true. She nodded, his words sparking memories like the incident this morning.
Jake Barley had been at her again, pulling on her hair and calling her a freak as the other kids laughed. She stood up to face him, her face red with anger as he poked her stomach, telling her that she was to skinny. "God don't you ever eat? Oh that's right, Mother Tilns doesn't feed freaks does she?" He asked, only adding fuel to the fire that was raging inside of her.
"Shut up Jake." She hissed and his eyes narrowed into slits, accepting her challenge.
"Or what?" He said, his face drawing nearer to hers. She could feel his hot breath tickle her face. He was too close to her, she hated when people got to close to her. She closed her eyes, willing him to back away when laughter filled the room. Her eyes flicked open to see a very shocked Jake stammering back into the crowd, her dinner staining his white shirt.
"How did you do that?" He questioned her harshly, noting that both of her hands had been balled into fists at her sides the whole time. "Whatever, it doesn't even matter, because now we know that you're even more of a freak then before." He taunted, before smirking. He ran off in the direction of Mother's room, fake tears already running down his cheeks as he prepared to tell on Nelina once again.
"That's called magic dear girl, not many people have it, and not many people understand it. You have a great gift on your hands, but it needs to be developed first. That is why I am here to give you your acceptance letter to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." He smiled at her as he pulled a slightly crumpled letter out of his silver robe, handing it to her.
The emerald green writing was a slanted cursive, looking like the writing she saw in really old biographies at the library. "Now, I must tell you now some important things you need to know." He started, his kind voice given a new edge of seriousness that made her inwardly cringe. "You are not to go by the name Malfoy. You have two half brothers but neither of them know about you, we intend to keep it that way for now." He said all this rather quickly, as if he needed her to hear the information but didn't exactly want it to sink in.
"I have a brother... two brothers?" She asked in amazement. "Why can't they know who I am?" She said quickly, her amazed tone turning sour.
"Neither of them know that you exist. We will reveal all in due time. I can in fact give you their names though and inform that they will be in your year at school." He said and she nodded as he talked quickly. "Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter. Now to move on, you will go by the surname Alexander, and if anyone asks you are of pure blood descent." He said and she nodded, taking mental notes.
"That is all you need to know for now, I will take you to where you need to go to pick up your school things and bring you to the place you will be staying until term starts." He said and she nodded, grabbing the small trunk every kid was given in case they are being transported somewhere else. She began to pack what little belongings she had furiously as the Mother walked in, handing Dumbledore papers to sign affirming everything.
She closed her trunk, the last of her things packed. Dumbledore lead her out of the room and gave her a few moments to say goodbye to everyone, the only one she actually goodbye consisting of a crying Amy. She hobbled out of the door before her new headmaster took her luggage for her, relieving her of the weight. He grabbed her arm when they were around the corner and out of eyesight and with a pop she was ripped away, her insides churning as she held on to the man next to her for dear life.
In a moment the vile sensation stopped and she found herself staring at an alley full of shops and people dressed similarly to her headmaster. "I will leave you here with your school list, when you are done with your shopping go to the Leaky Cauldron." He said, handing her another piece of wrinkled paper and disappearing. She looked around for a moment, wondering if the man was completely bonkers for leaving a child there on her own with no money when she looked at the paper.
Go to Gringott's Bank first, use your real name and ask for vault 687, it was your fathers. The words faded quickly from view, but not fast enough for her to miss them. She looked around frantically, searching for anyone who seemed to know where they were going. She began to walk in one direction, not seeing any relative landmarks to help her if she got lost when she bumped into a woman with fiery red hair. .
"Oh I'm sorry dear." She said, smiling down at the Nelina.
"It's fine Mam." Nelina replied and was about to continue walking before she stopped herself. "Do you happen to know where Gringott's is?" She asked and the woman shook her head, red curls flying everywhere like fire in the air. Nelina was given the chance to look behind her and see the multitude of children she had with her, each with the same bright orange-red hair. One of them smiled at her, his obvious twin looking in her direction and grinning from ear to ear.
"Just down the road in the way you were going, just keep moving and you'll find it. Can't miss it, it's huge." She said, her words sounding slightly repetitive. Nelina nodded and smiled, moving past the woman to continue on her way.
The woman was right, you couldn't miss the building. It's shadow rained over all the other shops within a short distance, easily reaching to shadow over the one across the street. She walked inside, taking the steps two at a time as she made her way into the cold marble building. She walked right to the end of the long walkway, passing vile looking creatures as she went.
She walked up to the desk where a crinkled small old man sat, his skin looking like a peach colored leather. "I'm Nelina Malfoy." She said and the small man nodded curtly, picking up a letter. "Vault 687 please." Nelina smiled at him and he scanned the letter, snapping his fingers for another small man to appear.
"Vault 687." He said in a gravelly voice that didn't sound friendly at all. Somewhere in the background she heard someone mutter about goblins, and she figured that must be the creatures that surrounded her now. The especially small one in front of her grabbed her hand and lead her to a small hand cart that raced towards the vault, making her feel extremely sick.
The door opened and the amount of gold that filled the room was astounding, she smiled as she took out a small purse and filled it to the brim with coins before leaving the room and having the goblin return her. She walked out of Gringotts with a purse full of money and made her way slowly finding all the things she needed on her list. Before asking around and finding the Leaky Cauldron where one of the men who worked there was expecting her.
Narcissa's View
Narcissa scanned the crowd for her daughter, not knowing what she looked like but hoping that maybe something would click when she saw her. She wondered who she looked like more, her or James. She sighed in frustration as the lot of ridiculous children milled around her, almost making her lose her own son.
She grabbed his arm and pulled him back into her, ignoring the glare he gave her for embarrassing him in public. She scanned once more, seeing something that caught her eye. A girl in robes that were blank, marking that of a first year student, was walking around blindly by herself. Her jet black hair stood out against the sea of blondes, redheads, and brunettes that surrounded her and her eyes were shining in the light. Narcissa suppressed a gasp as she stared at the girl she knew was her daughter.
The girl was coming their way and she tried to angle herself to be blocking the small child's path. Just as planned the girl -who hadn't even been looking straight ahead- bumped right into her. "Excuse me mam." She said politely and Narcissa stared into her eyes, the blue and silver blending perfectly with the green of her fathers hazel eyes.
"No problem, are you lost darling?" She tasked, her voice sounding extremely sugar-coated, even in her own head. Her son stared up at her as if he had never seen the woman before him. The girl nodded slowly, a pink tinge rising on her porcelain skin.
"I got onto the platform by watching people, but where are we supposed to sit?" The girl asked her and she smiled.
"You're a first year correct? You'll sit anywhere really, since you don't have a house yet. You can sit with my son Draco." She said and swore that for a split moment the girl sucked in a sharp breath. She really was a stunning creature. Most likely to be the prettiest in her class by far.
"Thank you Mrs. I'm Nelina Alexander, but everyone calls me Nellie." She said and Narcissa felt like crying. They had to have her change her last name, did that mean she knows who she is, did they change it at birth? Does she know anything about her family at all? Questions ran through her head but she sucked them down, knowing that it wasn't healthy to go searching for the past.
"Alright, go on you two, the train is leaving." She said and turned around to see her husband behind her with raised eyebrows.
"Who is the one who isn't ours?" He asked quietly as they walked away from the platform. Narcissa had the lingering feeling he knew exactly who it was, and just wanted to hear her say it out loud.
"Our daughter." She whispered.
Draco's View
He looked at the girl who is mum had paired him with. She was pretty, but he didn't even know anything about her. The only thing he did know is she had hair that stood out more than the Weasley freaks. It was long and as dark as his robe, cascading down her back in loose curls. She cleared her throat and he looked up at her, clear boredom evident in his face.
"You don't have to sit with me. After your mum explained it I'm sure I can find somewhere else." She said and he nodded, not really wanting to spend anytime with the awkward girl. The minute they stepped on the train she practically ran from his side, leaving him confused and standing in the entrance to the train alone.
He shook his head and turned towards the opposite direction, where he knew his friends would be waiting for him.
Fred's View
He looked at the compartment door, waiting for his brother to walk in with Lee Jordan. He sat back against the chair and closed his eyes for a moment, opening them only moments late to find the girl his mum helped in Diagon Alley ages ago. She looked lost and he stood up, smiling at her.
"Is this compartment full?" She asked worriedly, and he could tell that she had tried multiple compartments before this one, to no avail. He shook his head and gestured his hand inside.
"We've got room for you." He chirped, rocking back on his heels. The girl looked to be a first year, the same as Ron. She definitely looked a lot better than Ron, that's for sure. She smiled and sat in the corner, pulling a large book out of her backpack. He looked at it and noticed it was the first years potions book. She was about halfway through it and was completely engrossed in it from the looks of it.
"Are you reading a text book?" Lee came into the room, staring at the girl. She looked up confused and nodded in his general direction. "That's a bit odd." He muttered, still giving her a weird look. She looked up as George walked into the booth too and her face lit up.
"Your mum helped me in Diagon Alley!" She said, a smile on her face. "I'm Nellie." She said sticking her hand out. Fred shook it, the smile still on his face.
"I'm Fred and this is George." He said and she nodded, not even noticing he hadn't introduced Lee, who huffed and sat down across from her and next to George. Nelina kept her eyes on Fred as they chatted for the rest of the train ride to Hogwarts.
Oh gosh guys, so this is brand new and I hope you like it! It's not as long as I wanted it to be but it's late and I must go to sleep. Expect more to be coming slowly but steadily. Please review, it really helps me decide whether to continue the story or not. I must go now! Byee