AN: Hi, everyone! I'd like to start off saying that I'm sorry to anyone reading my other stories - they are not abandoned! I will get around to updating all of them, but between work and writer's block, it's going to take a while. In the mean time, my brain has decided to deliver me another child and I am sharing it with all of you. Please tell me what you think, and I hope you all enjoy! Also, sorry for the horrible summary. Hopefully the story makes up for it.
Summary: Cassiopeia had no qualms using her body to get information she wanted. She did it often. Then she made a mistake. She was pregnant. The father was married and Cassiopeia refused to abort her child. Ravina Black is very much her mother's child - in looks, at least. Ravina has a gift. She can tell when her family is in danger - or when they're about to make a decision that could ruin the House of Black as a whole. For this reason, she is House Black's greatest asset. She was also her mother's greatest secret - only a handful knew her her father was, and they would never reveal it to anyone outside the family. Can Ravina change the fate of the House of Black, or is it doomed to ruin?
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling. I own only OC and plot.
Ravina Black was every inch her mother's daughter: beautiful, graceful, elegant, charming – and lethal if necessary, even at the age of eleven. She also had her mother's uncomfortable habit of knowing more about you than you ever wanted anyone to know. However, unlike her mother, she had a gift. A… sixth sense… if you will, about members of her family – specifically, her own generation. She still felt the older family members, it was just stronger and more frequent with those her own age. She supposed it was because they were the future of House Black and they would decide its fate. She was, by now, used to pulling her cousins out of whatever mishap they had managed to get themselves into. Ravina was also a bit odd outside of her… unique ability. She was also… more open minded… than the majority of her relatives. That didn't make her 'soft' by any means, and certainly made her no less dangerous. It did, however, earn her scorn from the majority of her older cousins. Of the elder generation, only Arcturus, Orion, Cygnus and Pollux – her own grandfather – didn't dismiss her out of turn purely because of her lack of concern over blood purity. Well, and her mother, of course, but Cassiopeia had no care for such things either. Her only care was power and money. That wasn't to say she didn't love her daughter – only that she wasn't overly warm with the girl. As for her father… Ravina had no idea if the man even knew she was his. Ravina had been an accident, after all. So far as Ravina knew, the only people who knew the identity of her father were her mother, Arcturus, Pollux, and possibly Sirius, the current Heir Black. As well as Ravina herself, of course.
The only clue anyone had to her heritage was her coppery red hair, just a shade shy of being considered ginger. That was another thing that made her an oddity. Her hair, that is. She had the Black's grey eyes and sharp features, and her hair was just as wavy as her cousin Andromeda's. The red, however, was what set her apart from the rest of her family. So far as anyone knew, there had never been a redhead born into the Black family. Something else that had her adult cousins sneering. They thought she was a Weasley. They were wrong, of course, but her mother would be long buried before that secret was revealed – by Ravina, at least. That however was a concern for later. Now, she was standing in a line, waiting to be sorted. She could the whispers around her. They all thought she was muggleborn. She smirked. Oh, they were about to be surprised.
"Black, Ravina!"
The whispers became more fervent, spurned by shock as she approached the stool at the front of the room. A shy smile replaced the smirk as she approached the stern-looking woman holding the Sorting Hat. The hat was placed on her head. After a very long few minutes, finally the hat shouted,
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
Stunned silence. Yes, they were going to be very surprised indeed. The hat was lifted and she met the dubious gaze of Sirius Black from across the room as the Hall exploded with sound once more. For she was Cassiopeia Black's greatest secret.