Because Family is Family

"Now, Cela, mummy has to go away for a few months." Eve Spencer crouched in front of her four-year-old daughter, their matching eyes locked. The young girl had always adored the fact their eyes matched. Eve's hands were on her daughter's shoulders and she didn't want to let go. She never wanted to let go. She never wanted to leave her daughter again. She wanted to whisk the beautiful girl away to the life they were meant to have together. The life they would have had if fate had been any kinder.

But she couldn't.

She'd never be able to.

Tears brimmed in Leah's eyes. The girl had never cried often, even as a young baby. Eve could count the times she'd seen it happen on one hand. "When will you be back?"

"I don't know, Cela." Eve moved to cup the girl's cheek, one of her daughter's own hands coming up to rest on top of it. It had always worried Eve how cold her daughter's hands were. "I'll be back as soon as possible, I promise."

"Okay," Leah said, nodding. "I'll wait."

"I know you will, Cela. I know you will." Eve kissed her daughter's head for the last time. "I have a present for you." She undid the golden locket she'd always worn, another thing her daughter had always loved to play with. "This is yours now." Leah's eyes widened as she took it. Eve could tell the girl wanted to give it back, not liking the way she looked without it, but Eve closed the girl's hands over it. "I've got to leave now, Cela." Eve could feel the girl's father watching them.

It was that man's fault that Eve had to leave her daughter, that she was being forced away now. He'd refused to give her a reason for it, just told her to say her goodbyes and leave as quickly as she could. She had the sense that she'd never be allowed back.

He was the one with the final decisions in Leah's life, after all. The one the Ministry would grant custody if they presented the case, the one Dumbledore had made her ask to see her daughter at all.

Eve hugged her daughter as tightly as she could, trying to make the moment last forever, before she stood and left, wrapping her coat tightly around herself against the cold winter air. She could have cast a spell to warm herself, but Eve couldn't remember the last time she'd used magic.

It just wasn't worth it anymore. It hadn't been worth it in years.

=CVS=

As his family name requested, Donald Sigmund Flint flocked to power.

Potestatem persistit. Power persists.

It was said that when a Flint joined your side, you were destined to win. That a Flint could detect power in the air.

But the Dark Lord had lost with Flints on his side. Donald's own parents had been among his ranks, as had his aunt.

And perhaps the Dark Lord had won, in a way, even if he was gone. He'd torn the Wizarding world apart, made Slytherins the enemies of it all.

Donald Flint knew that being a Slytherin did not mean you were evil. He knew the power of wearing green and silver. He was proud of being a snake, despite the looks it got him in the Ministry.

When someone knocked on his door close to Christmas, Donald did not sense power in the air. Instead, he found his cousin, Evelyn Blythe Spencer.

Eve, bearing the blonde hair of the Flint family but not the temperament or name. Eve, who'd been a Hufflepuff in Hogwarts because she was too loyal instead of ambitious. Eve, who'd joined the Death Eaters and earned herself a position among those whispered about.

She was a witch who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. It didn't matter that, technically, the Ministry had cleared her of all charges. She'd been connected once and that was enough.

Enough to have Donald nearly slam the door on her face and never look back.

"I have a daughter!"

The words reached him just before the door closed fully. Donald did not reopen it, but he did not continue to close it. Slytherins cared about family, after all. Flints cared about family. He cared about first cousins once removed.

"She's four, and she's beautiful, and her father has kept her from me." Eve pushed the door open more. "Please, Donald. I need your help."

"Who is her father?" Eve looked as though she didn't want to say it. "Tell me, Eve."

"Severus Snape."

Another Death Eater, but that man had been cleared by Albus Dumbledore himself. That man bore the scars but had gotten out of it cleaner than Eve.

"What do you expect me to do about it?"

"Get her back." Eve grabbed his robes, a Slytherin green. "Please, Donald. She can't stay with him."

Eve looked so much like a madwoman that Donald almost wondered if she'd made her daughter up completely. "What's her name?"

That seemed to make Eve more hopeful.

"Celaeno Victoria."

Donald knew that Celaeno was his great grandmother – Celaeno Flint nee Greengrass - and Victoria was Eve's mother - Victoria Spencer nee Flint. A girl named in the manner befitting pure-bloods.

He stepped back, but it wasn't to close the door. It was to let Eve inside.

=CVS=

It was only after careful consultation with Donald's younger sister, Raine, that he finally agreed to help his cousin. That he finally agreed to face down Dumbledore and the Ministry to get Leah out of her father's house.

The Ministry, really, hadn't known what to do with Leah. It wasn't normal that they stepped into the affairs of parents and a child, but Donald and Raine Flint – she was a Rivers, technically, but Raine would always be a Flint – had walked into the Minister's office and demanded that Leah be taken from her father's home. But Donald had handed Millicent Bagnold the paperwork that meant Eve had appointed Donald as Leah's guardian.

Then, the Ministry was forced to make a decision. If it were simply between the parents, it would have been easy. After all, Leah's father had Albus Dumbledore's protection and her mother had no one. Her father was the best of two bad options and the Ministry would have moved on. Shoved it to the back of their minds and continued on their merry way healing after You-Know-Who's rise.

But Donald didn't let that happen. Because after all, weren't no Death Eaters better than a reformed one? Wasn't a respected Ministry employee better than a young new professor? Wasn't a Flint better than some no-name?

Albus Dumbledore hadn't been happy with it. He went to speak with Donald and Raine to attempt and convince them that Eve was dangerous, that Leah's father's home was really, honestly, the best place for her. But they heard none of it.

For not only were they Flints and Slytherins, but Raine had a son Leah's age and she'd be damned if she let the girl be anywhere but what was the absolute safest for her. And there was no way that Dumbledore could argue that the home of Donald Flint, well-respected member of the Wizarding world and promising lawyer, wasn't the best place.

The Ministry agreed.

And so Donald did everything but adopt the girl. He'd been nearing on that too, but Dumbledore visited again and told Donald what he already knew; he had no hope of winning adoption, no matter how much of a Death Eater Leah's parents were. That there was a solution that would satisfy all parties involved.

All parties, that is, except Eve.

Donald gained parental responsibilities. Her father retained visiting rights. And her mother?

Her mother wasn't allowed anywhere near her.

The Ministry was fine with that.

And so Donald went to Severus Snape's home, handed him the paperwork, and went to collect Leah.

The girl was in her room when Donald found her, looking terrified. He was shocked at how little she looked like her mother. She had her father's hooked nose, dark hair, and rounded shoulders. But when she looked up at him, motionless, he saw that she had Eve's eyes. They weren't particularly Flint, but Donald honestly would have been surprised to find any of that in her. Perhaps it would come as she grew.

He crouched down to be at her height and remembered Raine's son, a boy of the same age. How eager the boy already looked, how quick to smile. And how little of that there was in Leah. "Hello, Leah." He spoke as he had years before when facing little first years as a Slytherin Prefect. He'd always wondered why he'd been chosen for the task, as compassion was never something he'd been particularly skilled at expressing. "My name is Donald. I'm a cousin of your mother. And I'm going to take care of you now."

"Can I see mummy?"

He forced his expression into a smile. "I'm sorry, Leah, but not yet." After all, the Ministry may have taken away her father's custody, but that didn't mean they'd reinstated her mother's. "Would you like to take my hand?"

Leah looked down at it and Donald wondered how much compassion she'd been shown as a child from anyone but her mother. "Where are we going?"

"I'm going to take you to my house. Is there anything you want to take with you?" She shook her head, not even needing to look around the room to check. "Alright then." She took his hand, finally. Her hand felt cold. "Let's go."

=CVS=

The early morning house was quiet around the now eleven-year-old Leah. She knew Donald was in his office finishing up his reports, but she didn't really mind the silence regardless. She was used to the house being silent; Donald always preferred silence.

Leah had never been naturally quiet – a trait Donald couldn't say if she'd inherited from her mother or not, but one she liked to think she had – but after seven years she'd taught herself how to pretend. One thing she knew she'd inherited from Donald – and wondered if it was from her father too – was working best in the early morning.

It did help that she tended to get woken then by nightmares since Donald had taught her to make the best of a bad situation and use the time to get things done. If she still wanted, he would comfort her, tell her that nightmares weren't real unless you let them be, but he'd also shown her that focusing on work could be better for you. That distracting yourself could scare the nightmares away.

That was why she'd woken up that morning. A nightmare that, by now, she didn't remember. There was something green, but that was all that remained now.

The knock at the door announced the arrival of the house-elf Donald's parents had made him acquire upon taking in Leah. Vorky was always a welcome addition to Leah's room in these early mornings, particularly because he tended to carry lemon sweets with him. "Hello, mistress," Vorky said, smiling at her. "Your letter has arrived."

Immediately, Leah leapt off her bed, where she'd been sitting reading, to take the letter from Vorky.

She'd known exactly when it would come. She'd made a calendar to mark the days until it would. She'd dreaded that it wouldn't.

But it had. She'd always known it would. She was a witch. She had magic. She would go to Hogwarts.

"Thank you, Vorky."

"You're welcome, mistress. Breakfast will be prepared shortly." With another smile, Vorky left her room, leaving the door slightly ajar. Vorky tended to do that, to the annoyance of Donald.

It was one of the few times that Leah had seen Donald get angry and that was mainly just because he kept getting lost in his own house. After all, Flint homes were enchanted to create the rooms required of its inhabitants, growing and shrinking as situations required, moving about personal belongings as the house deemed fit. But a room could only vanish if the door was completely closed and if Vorky left all the doors open, the house would just keep growing.

Leah had been lost an entire day once, wandering rooms to attempt to find one she recognized, but the magic was so finicky that rooms that should have been connected tended not to be.

Mostly, you just had to hope that the house would get you to where you wanted to go.

She touched her locket as she looked at the letter. Her mother had gone to Hogwarts, Donald had told her. Had told her of a mother who'd worn yellow robes despite her Flint blood.

And while Donald hadn't known much about Leah's father, she knew that the man had gone to Hogwarts too. She knew that the man taught there as the Potions Master. She knew that going to Hogwarts would mean seeing him for the first time in seven years.

Technically, her father wasn't prevented from seeing her. Donald had explained it all to her on her seventh birthday, when her magic had made itself prominent enough that there was no question of where she'd go once she turned eleven. Donald was her guardian, an unofficial godfather if you wished, but her father was still her father.

Her father could have come and visited her whenever he wanted over these seven years - unlike her mother - but her father hadn't. Leah had always been curious about why he hadn't. About why he'd ignored her.

After fighting so hard to keep her with him, it didn't seem right that her father wouldn't want to see her.

But maybe he'd just been waiting. He'd see her once she came to Hogwarts, after all, once she was sorted.

Once she was sorted into Slytherin.

Because it wasn't even a question, at least in Leah's mind. She knew her mother had been a Hufflepuff, but her father had been a Slytherin.

Donald had been a Slytherin. Raine had been one, as had Arthur and Sarah, Donald's other siblings. Even Circe, Donald's cousin on his other side, had been in Slytherin. The Flint family was teeming with Slytherins.

Leah had been surrounded by Slytherins since birth. Slytherin was in her blood.

She traced a finger over the green ink before she opened the letter. It was simple, normal, the same thing sent to every other first year she'd be starting Hogwarts with. The same letter that her mother and father and Donald and Raine and everyone else around her had received.

She was going to Hogwarts.

Once she was certain that the letter was actually real and not a dream, Leah tucked it into her skirt and went looking for breakfast. She wasn't that surprised not to see Donald there, as the man did tend to get lost in his work, but Vorky had prepared her oatmeal exactly how she liked it, so it was enjoyable.

She would have to write Ollie when she had the chance. The boy, Raine's son and called cousin because it was easier - just as she sometimes called Donald uncle - was her same age. He would have received a letter that morning too.

However, she hadn't even finished her breakfast before Vorky appeared with another letter for her, Ollie beating her to it. His family had been off visiting Sarah in Russia for the summer and would only just be back by September first, so there was no hope of them meeting in Diagon Alley.

Leah decided that she'd write her mother instead, even if the woman had never replied. Of course, Leah had never actually sent them.

She knew her mother wouldn't have been able to reply even if she'd gotten the letters.

=CVS=

Though the letter arrived halfway through July, Donald didn't get a chance to get off from work until the first day of August. If it had taken any longer he'd been planning on contacting Arthur or Alesia, Arthur's wife, and have them take her instead, but thankfully it hadn't come to that.

Leah waited in the front hall for Donald on the day they'd agreed on, watching the adult Muggles outside the window. Flint houses, thanks to their magical properties, were able to exist quite happily alongside Muggle ones. Leah didn't spend much time outside of the house based on the basic fact that Donald's house wasn't surrounded by many children. It was a street of bachelors and bachelorettes that entertained a steady stream of changing occupants due to the fact that none of the homes were particularly suited to housing families.

There'd been one girl that Leah had started to become friends with almost right after she'd first started living with Donald, but that girl had left shortly after.

So Leah had gotten used to simply watching the world from the house, making friends with her various few cousins instead of Muggle children. Besides, Muggle children were that: Muggles. Why would Leah want to be friends with them when she had a world of wizarding children to be friends with once she got to Hogwarts?

"You look excited," Donald said, making Leah turn. They were both wearing robes that day, matching emerald green that Donald had sworn was close to Slytherin. "Ready, dove?" He called her that sometimes, when feeling particularly kind, which wasn't often, but she didn't mind. She nodded and he gestured for her to follow him to the front room, one of the few rooms in the entire house to never shift around.

Inside was only a fireplace and it was how, mostly, Leah went anywhere and everywhere. She was well-practiced at stepping into those emerald flames to meet with relatives, though Donald did do it as little as possible due to his own general dislike of a majority of his family members.

He let her go through first, flooing to a fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron specifically meant for this purpose. And then they together, though he did pause to say hello to a witch he recognized from the Ministry, went into Diagon Alley, Donald tapping the specific brick with his wand.

Leah had been to Diagon Alley before, accompanying Donald soon after he'd taken her in and before Vorky had been forced upon him. She'd been four, nearly five, and didn't remember many of the details.

But what she had remembered – and what she'd tried to capture in drawings – were the colors. Each witch or wizard swarming the street brought with them a variety of colors, mixtures of Muggle and magical clothing, and pairing that with the shops created an onslaught for her senses.

And it was wonderful. Leah never wanted to leave.

Donald took her hand to ensure she didn't wander away, a gesture he only really did in public like this, and led her down the street to Gringotts. As someone half in the Wizarding world and half among Muggles, the money he carried tended to sway one way or another. It seemed that that day, he had more Muggle than Wizard and thus had to get the goblins of Gringotts to convert it for him.

He kept her beside him as he went to the goblin in question, forced to wait in a line of Muggle-borns and their parents exchanging money for the first time. There were a few witches or wizards scattered among them, seeming to be official Ministry employees attempting to make the experience as easy as possible. One of the Muggle-born, a girl who looked around Leah's age, waved at her enthusiastically as she passed, parents led by a harried looking wizard.

She turned to watch the girl leave, only for her attention – and that of quite a few people in line with her – to be caught by a man larger than any Leah had seen before hurrying through the bank. A boy, around her age again, trailed behind him, looking rather amazed about the entire affair. Leah would have thought he was a Muggle-born too if it weren't for the fact he was going to the goblins in charge of the general Gringotts vaults.

"Time to go," Donald said, taking Leah's hand again to bring her out of the bank.

As every member of her family had gone to Hogwarts before, there was a general pool of books and equipment available for all Flint children to use when it came their time, though the majority of them did tend to buy their own anyway, as they generally had the money to do so. Donald had decided that she'd get fresh potions equipment and new editions of a few of the books, but they had enough of everything else.

One thing Leah would get herself, for certain, was a wand. Donald saved that for last, Leah joining him as he purchased various things both he needed and Vorky had requested. He did promise that, if she did good in her first year, he'd get her an owl for her second and let her look around the Owl Emporium to get an idea of what type she'd want the next year.

But then it was time.

Then they were entering Ollivander's, a bell going off to announce their arrival. It looked empty at first, just lined as far as Leah could see with wand boxes, but then Ollivander himself appeared. "Ah, hello, Miss Snape." He smiled at Leah. "I thought I'd be seeing you soon." He looked up to Donald. "Mr. Flint, yes. Fir with a unicorn's hair core, thirteen inches, stiff?"

Donald nodded. "Still serves me well."

"Yes, a good wand, a good wand." Back to Leah. "Now, let's see." He waved a hand and a tape measure started measuring various points of Leah. She glanced at Donald, but he nodded, so she stayed motionless, even as Ollivander vanished back into the piles of wands. He returned with a caramel colored wand in hand. "Walnut and unicorn's hair. Nine inches. Stiff. Try it."

Leah took it and instantly knew that the natural coldness of her fingers deepened. When she flicked the wand, nothing happened.

"Ah, no, I thought not." Ollivander took the wand back, searching for another. The one he returned with was paler, the grip stained darker. "Willow and dragon's heartstring. Ten inches. Slightly whippy."

That time, when she touched it, Leah was overcome with a mixture of giddiness and a pull in her gut. A flick summoned wisps of light that she swore smelled like Vorky's lemon candies.

"Yes, yes, far more sense," Ollivander nodded, placing the wand in the box for her. "Eight galleons." Donald gave him the necessary coins. "Enjoy your time at Hogwarts, Miss Snape."

"Thank you," she said, smiling, and they left the store together, Leah holding tightly to her wand.

She'd never really touched a wand before. She'd played with Donald's when she was little and he wasn't yet used to not leaving a wand lying about when there was a young child in the house. Gave Vorky quite a fright when he'd come in to find her stuck to the ceiling.

Donald had been careful to keep his wand away from her since then.

But now she had her own. Now she was going to go to Hogwarts and learn how to use it and channel all that bubbling inside her that she swore was magic. That she knew was magic.

She was going to Hogwarts.

A/N: Hello and welcome! In honor of it being September 1, 2017, I decided to post the first chapter of The Bloodline Chronicles. This story will follow Celaeno Victoria Snape, nicknamed Leah by most people, Cela by her mother, and dove by Donald (after the Pleiades Celaeno of Greek mythology).

Sit back and enjoy this journey through the life of a strange little girl who is determined to be a Slytherin.

Thank you.