So, this is the first Harry Potter story I've posted, but the second one I've written. I might post the other one eventually, but this is my favorite. I'm just posting the first few chapters to see what people think, so don't expect regualr updatige. I'll post it all after I finish my Naruto stories. Enjoy!
Story Summary: A girl forced into service as a Death Eater. At least a thousand lives ruined because of a Dark Lord. The story of one girl's determination to see him fall.
Episode Summary: This is the prologue, so it sets up a bunch of stuff. Celia begins her story.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, nor did I write it. If I had I wouldn't have married Harry and Genny, but that's just me.
Prologue
I think that, like all good stories (and even some bad ones), I shall start at the beginning. Beginnings tell you how things originate, and if you know how things originate you can see for your self whether the choices made along the journey were the correct ones. I think I did the right thing, but what you decide is completely left up to you.
My name is Cecilia Eleanor Rukin. I'm a pureblood witch from a Slytherin family that wanted nothing to do with the Dark Lord. The Rukin family is large, wealthy, and not pureblood crazy. My mother, Diana Rukin, is best friends with Narcissa Malfoy. And that is where my tale begins: at the Malfoy Manor, when I was seven years old.
"Dian, your I swear your daughter grows more precious every day!" Aunt Cissy squealed delightedly. I was sitting infront of the hearth, reading an Ancient Greek book on medicine. Internally, I rolled my eyes. Let them think I don't know what I'm reading. When they see me jab a pressure point and my new little 'cousin' collapse, I'll be the one laughing.
My mother giggled, her wineglass never so much as jostling. "Cissy, she can understand Greek. She knows what she's reading as much as any doctor is St. Mungos. But we aren't here to adore my daughter," mother said with a smile. She stood up and tapped the wineglass with her wand for attention. The room, which had been lively and full of chatter, fell silent immediately. "I would like to make a toast!" Mother's voice rang out clear and concise, like a hand bell.
Uncle Lucius made his way over to where Cissy was sitting on the leather couch and clasped her shoulder from behind. Cissy looked up at him and smiled. They were so in love it was disgusting to see. To prove that, I mimed gagging from my spot on the floor.
"To our dear friends Narcissa and Lucius, and their new born son, Draco. We know how long you have wanted this child, and we are ecstatic for you," my mother smiled a small smile on the last part of her sentence. Narcissa had lost two babies before Draco.
The room erupted into applause and glasses were gently tapped together. I rolled my eyes and continued with my book. Before I had even read a whole page and the clapping could die down, a hand on my shoulder interrupted me. I turned snapped my head up to invoke the full force of my glare on the unsuspecting person, but to my surprise and delight it was my almost brother.
"Regulus!" I squealed as he twirled me in a circle. Regulus Black and my oldest sister Eloise were engaged to be married. Regulus sat me up on his shoulder and walked over to greet his cousin.
"Reading by such a dim light will ruin your eyes, Celia," he teased. I couldn't see his face, but I knew it was perfectly composed. It was always a game between us.
"Holding me on your shoulder will give you a bad back," I replied, my face just as mask like. "And it will stunt your growth."
"As will being hunched over on the floor," Regulus pointed out. "What is so important in that book that you feel the need to be on the floor infront of the fire to read it?" I was balanced on his right shoulder, so he kept walking and weaving through the crowd of people that had formed around Aunt Cissy carefully. As he got to the front he slid me off his shoulder and grabbed me one armed before I hit the floor. "Here," he whispered as he set me down. A butterbeer appeared out of nowhere.
I beamed up at him. He smiled in return and I scampered off to the fireplace with my book and drink. Regulus and my older brother Thayer were best friends, which is how he met Eloise. Regulus was always around the house for one reason or another, so he was already like a brother to me. My second favorite brother, to be exact.
After a while, a voice that sounded a bit like a crow to me floated into my hearing. "Come Cissy, let's see the baby," one of the old ladies prodded Narcissa.
Aunt Cissy smiled and stood up. "All right. I'll go get Draco. Dian, will you please come with me?" My mother nodded and they both headed out of the room for the stairs.
The moment they left the room green tongues of flame leapt from the fireplace where I was sitting. Every person in the room, save for my family, knelt down to one knee. I stared defiantly up at the hooded and cloaked figure that stepped out of the floo. He had covered me in soot.
"HEY!" I squealed. There was soot in my book too. "MISTER! You got soot in my book!"
The man looked down at me. I could tell he was very pale, and had no nose. His eyes were big and red. He had a very thin mouth, but it was smiling at me. "So I did," he mused. His voice sounded dry and slithery, like leaves over rock. He pulled out a wand and knelt down to me. "Would you like me to clean it?"
"If you don't mind," I replied politely. "I'd have the house-elves clean it, but they would end up hurting my book." The man chuckled.
"Yes, this book does seem very old. Can you read it?"
I rolled my eyes. "Of course I can. See, this part here says, 'After you have cleaned the wound with vinegar, take a sharp needle and sew the edges of the wound together with silk thread. If you have neither silk thread nor a needle, take your wand and trace along the wound chanting the words knit and flesh repeatedly.' It goes on to say that magic is useful, but the body should heal itself if possible," I explained. The man flicked his wand and stood up. The soot marks faded from my book as though they had never been.
"What is you name?" he asked me. I stood up as gracefully as a seven-year-old can and curtsied like a good little pureblood.
"Cecilia Eleanor Rukin," I said as I bobbed.
The man was about to reply, but Cissy and mother walked into the room. Cissy staggered to a halt, handed the baby to my mother, and knelt to one knee. My mother simply nodded at the man and glared at me.
"Diana, your youngest daughter is most interesting," the man informed her. Mother smiled at the complement, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Where ever did she learn Greek?"
"One of the house elves we had bought on vacation in Athens taught her from the cradle. She knows both Greek and Latin," mother explained. I stood where I was, next to the man, trying to figure out what was going on.
The man held out his hand to me, a hand with long thin fingers. "Shall we go see the baby?" he asked me.
I took his hand. "I already saw it. It cries a lot and makes funny noises, but other than that it's no fun," I told him with a shrug of my shoulders.
He chuckled. "But the crying and noises are fun?" he asked me. He sounded genuinely interested.
I smirked. "The crying and noises make Aunt Cissy and Uncle Lucius run around like scared house-elves," I explained. The man laughed out right at this.
Cissy had stood up and was holding baby Draco. My mother stood next to her, ready to take me from the man. "I think your mother would like you to stand with her, Cecilia. I'll talk with you again soon," he said. I looked up at him and smiled. He smiled back down at me and I let go of his hand and grabbed my mother's.
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"Celia, I'm leaving now, but I wanted to say farewell," the man told me a little later that night. I was sitting in the kitchen, having gotten bored with the party. "I have a few books that you might be interested in, and if you'd like I'll have your Uncle Lucius bring them to you."
I hopped off my chair and curtsied. "Yes, m'lord," I said happily.
"And who told you to do that?"
"Aunt Cissy told me to answer you like that," I replied. "She said I could hold the baby if I did, and I told her yes Aunt Cissy, but my mother knew what I meant by that. Mother told me that if I wasn't respectful I'd get a switching on my bottom," I grimaced. Mother always knew me too well.
"What did you mean when you answered Narcissa?"
I grinned sheepishly. "I don't want to hold the baby, so I wasn't going to do as she said," I explained. The man laughed like he understood and would have done the same.
"I will see you soon, Cecilia," he assured me. He patted me on the head and then disapparated.
I gathered up my book and went back out to the parlor where my mother was. I was tired and wanted to go home. As I entered the room, every one fell silent and stared at me. "Yes?" I asked, my voice carrying through the room.
"Come here, darling," mother called from the sofa where she sat next to Aunt Cissy. Cissy was cradling the baby in her arms and humming.
I handed my book to a house-elf and skipped over to my mother. "Yes mother?" I asked as sweetly as I could. Mother patted the spot between herself and Cissy. I sat down carefully so the baby wouldn't cry. Next, much to my horror, Cissy put the baby in my lap.
"Mind his head," Cissy warned. I cradled his head carefully. The baby was warm and soft. His eyes stared up at me, storm gray and curious. At first I thought he was bald, but his hair was actually silver and wispy on his funny little head.
He reached up a hand and grabbed my nose. I snorted into his little baby fist, and he giggled. "You're a funny looking little baby, aren't you Draco?" I asked him seriously. He gurgled a bit more.
"Celia, what did the Dark Lord want to talk to you about?" my father, Aloysius, asked gently.
I glanced up at him from Draco. "He wanted to know if I wanted to borrow a book. I said yes and he said that he'd have Uncle Lucius bring it to me. He's a very nice man," I said with a smile. "He understood just like you did, mother."
Father and mother shared a dark look. "We have to be more careful," mother muttered. She wrapped her arm around my shoulders protectively. "He might decide to ask for one of us any way."
Father ran his hand through his short dark blonde hair. "He can't possibly want Celia. She's only seven!"
Lucius came around and clasped my father's forearm. "If you would support him, Celia would be safe. They all would be safe," he reasoned, giving my father a gentle shake.
Father glared at him. "No Rukin has ever followed the Dark Lord, and no Rukin ever will. You all need law abiding pure-bloods like us so that you don't fall under suspicion. We don't ask about your activities, and you keep them to yourselves. It's a fair trade," father snapped. He jerked out of Lucius's grip. I noticed that my family, Regulus, and Andromeda were the only ones still present.
"I suggest it only to protect your family, Aloysius. Nothing more, nothing less. But you're about to have a Death Eater married into the family. That will make Eloise a Death Eater's Wife, just like Narcissa. Maybe that will save you," Lucius said. But I could tell he didn't truly believe what he had said. We were the only pureblood Slytherin family who didn't follow the Dark Lord.
I was about to say something when a tiny fist tugged my hair. I snapped my head down to glare at the tiny bundle in my arms, only to see that he was glaring up at me. "You don't like any attention drawn away from you, do you little Draco?"
The tension in the room dissipated. Every one laughed, everyone except Regulus.
The next four years were strange and boring. Regulus disappeared mysteriously soon after Draco was born. The Dark Lord fell. Sirius, Regulus's brother who I liked almost as much, was placed in Azkaban. Draco grew from weird baby to annoying toddler. And I started Hogwarts.
I was placed in Slytherin House, having not been able to decide between Gryffindor and Slytherin. I studied hard and was top in my class. I was also still very interested in Medical Magic. I learned from Madam Pompfry and helped her in the Hospital Wing at every spare chance. My best friend that first year was Nymphadora Tonks, Aunt Andromeda's daughter.
Time went on and I kept learning medicine. Books were sent to me periodically through my years at Hogwarts from what was apparently the Dark Lord's own library.
In my fifth year at Hogwarts, I met the Weasly twins. They were first years, and their experiments and adventures got them in a whole heap of trouble quite often. When they would get hurt and didn't want to explain why, they came to me. I patched them and anyone else up on the down low. I guess that's what led to what happened, but that's for later.
This was the background, and so next comes the story.