Chapter One:
"Lilac! Come down here at once!"
Lilac Isabelle Manning sighed and tossed her clothes haphazardly into a brown-and-white plaid suitcase. Her mother, father and her were going to London for part of the vacation.
"Lilac! Do I have to come and get you?"
Lilac's mother called up the stairs.
"Coming, Mamma!"
Lilac called back. Lilac zipped up the suitcase, grabbed the handle and dashed down the stairs.
Lilac had on what she called her 'traveling' outfit. She had on a pale blue periwinkle tank top with a white jean jacket over it. She wore thin, light velvet leggings of light purple. On her feet were white party sandals. Her long, blonde shoulder length hair was tied up in a ponytail with a white ribbon to keep it out of her pretty robin-egg blue eyes.
The three of them got into the car and they drove off. As often happened when she was in the same place for a long time with nothing to do, she began to wonder about her birth parents. She imagined that her mother had blonde hair like her own and beautiful green eyes. She imagined that her mother was her loyal friend and confidant, that her father had black hair and arms for hugging, that her mother wore a warm smile whenever her daughter was near.
It wasn't that she didn't love her adoptive parents but inside her, she had always yearned to know, who her biological parents were. She daydreamed until she fell asleep in the car.
They reached the hotel by nightfall; Lilac woke up to the crunch of the car on gravel. The hotel was a pink and yellow building, artfully painted so the pink and yellow didn't clash. The hotel was only three stories tall, from the outside it looked quite small but inside it was in fact quite large. Each guest had their own apartment: living room/dinning room, two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, three closets and a pantry.
Lilac's room was painted a soft yellow, the floor was wood: cherry. Her bed was old-fashioned but nice: A four-poster bed draped with silken silver curtains. The bed had silk sheets and a silk comforter, as well as a cozy, thick quilt. The pillow was thick with feathers. Next to the bed was a night table with a lamp on it. There were four big windows; in front of one was the bed. In front of another was a nice maple wood desk with another lamp and a twirl-y, desk chair.
Lilac sat on her knees in the chair and peered out the window. She could see snow and a forest that she hadn't noticed before. 'And out there was that some kind of person?' Lilac wondered.
"Lilac!"
Lilac's mother called.
"Time for bed, darling!"
Her mother, Mollie came into the room.
"Why don't you get your nightgown on and brush your teeth?"
Lilac sighed,
"Yes, Mamma."
Lilac changed into her blue silken nightgown and brushed her teeth. Then, she climbed into bed. Her mother started to tuck her in, and then stopped.
"Why don't you read for a while?"
Her mother suggested,
"Only, try not to read too long."
Lilac nodded her head enthusiastically; she had noticed a pile of books in the hotel's lobby.
Her father, Jonathan came in, too. That was unusual, usually only Lilac's mother put her to bed.
"Night, sweetheart,"
He said hugging his daughter close. Lilac hugged her father back,
"Night, Daddy!"
She said.
"Sleep tight,"
He said, getting up,
"Don't let the bedbugs bite!"
Lilac rolled her eyes at him,
"Oh, Daddy, don't be silly! If there were really bedbugs, this hotel would get no business."
Jonathan Manning smiled fondly and, yet, it seems, sadly at his adoptive daughter.
Tomorrow might be the last day he ever saw her.
He flicked off the main light switch leaving the lamp next to the bed on for Lilac to read by.
Lilac waited until her father had left the room and she was sure that he was in his own room.
She climbed out of the two-story hotel through her window.
She made sure to jamb it so that she could open it when she came back.
She let herself down slowly but suddenly her fingers slipped and she fell to the ground. Lilac braced herself for the hard cement ground, but in the last half a foot, she floated gently to the ground.
Lilac stared at her hands in confusion, but then decided to ponder it later.
She slipped in through the first story window, into the marble and granite lobby.
She looked around; only one young woman seemed to be about.
"Excuse, me?"
She called softly.
"Would you know where any of the books that, I saw this morning are?"
The woman whirled around, and then relaxed when she saw Lilac's face. Lilac saw that she was wearing a sort of fancy robe, in an apricot yellow.
"Aren't you Narcissa's daughter?"
"Um,"
Lilac had no idea who 'Narcissa' was, but she was clever enough to notice it would probably be the quickest way to get what she wanted,
"Yes, actually."
"I daresay, you've probably read all of them already, eh?"
"Err,"
Lilac said thinking fast,
"Yes, three or four times, but I do like to re-read them."
"Here you go then,"
The woman handed her seven or eight books, and then added,
"I'm Nikki Moretti. My family's Italian, pure-bloods, you know."
Lilac nodded, "Pleased to meet you, Nikki."
"You, too, Lilac. Have you started at Hogwarts, yet?"
"Y-yes."
'What is Hogwarts?' Lilac wondered.
"Well, then go to bed. It is late."
"Goodnight, Nikki,"
Lilac skipped back outside and shimmied up to the window. She crawled through the window with her books.
She closed the window and sat down on the bed. She examined at the titles of the books that she had found:
The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)
By Miranda Goshawk;
A History of Magic
By Bathilda Bagshot;
Magical Theory
By Adalbert Waffling;
Quidditch Through the Ages
By Kennilworthy Whisp;
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
By Newt Scamander;
The Tales of Beedle the Bard
By Beedle the Bard;
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi
By Phyllida Spore;
A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration
By Emeric Switch;
Magical Drafts and Potions
By Arsenius Jigger;
And
An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe
By Mollie O'Brien & Marie Haines.
"What kind of books are these?"
Lilac wondered aloud.
"It seems like a joke but if it were a joke, why go to so much trouble?"
"LIGHTS, OUT!" Mollie called from the other room.
Lilac was about to protest when she realized it probably wasn't the best idea to tell her mother that she had been climbing in and out of windows.
Click. Lilac twisted the light's knob. The room flooded with darkness.