So, I would like to thank those who have read, reviewed, favourited and alerted this story. It means a lot to hear your opinions and to know that there are people who enjoy this story so far.

I don't own anything about the Harry Potter world, just my OCs.

Enjoy!


Chapter 2: Oh, na na, what's my name? Oh, na na, what's my name?

Who am I?

The words left a prickling silence after them as she tasted the words. She felt strange, like her body was possessed by something strong and magical with its own mind. Her only eye took in the surroundings: the room seemed to be shining in different colors and the three faces watching her looked very different. The old man – Alexander? – had a wrinkled face and wild, white hair now specked with colors from the lights in the room. His eyes were difficult to read, but he seemed awed to be in her presence. It felt odd.

The woman, Varushka, was pale and thin faced, looking shrewd and cunning, dark and mysterious. Her eyes were black and her hair was a golden red, reminding the girl about the autumn leaves, though she wasn't sure of where she had seen them. When Varushka smiled encouragingly, she exposed her teeth which were all white and some were very pointy. The girl's body filled with a heat, a rush of recognition.

The last of the group, the youngest of them all, was a man as well. He looked shocked, with wide grey eyes and long, light brown hair that seemed soft. Though he was also covered in spots of color from the lamps all over the room. He looked at her with respect and something similar to fear. Why should he fear her?

"You don't remember anything?"

Alexander sounded curious, respectful and disappointed at the same time. It made her head spin around, feeling that it was too many emotions for her to handle. But his question triggered something in the back of her head.

Red.

A lot of red, a lot of pain, sharp and burning, like fire, tearing her apart, piece by piece. She sat up quickly, making Brandon and Alexander jump in surprise, though the latter seemed pleased by the act. Varushka smiled even wider. Alexander suddenly had a quill in his hand and due to lack of parchment; he started to write on his own skin.

"Pain", she whispered, lost in thoughts with pictures in a vivid red in her mind. "So much pain. . . ."

"Don't worry, zverenysh", said Varushka soothingly, carefully placing one of her hands on the girl's bare arm. "Pain won't bother you in the future."

The girl looked at Varushka and seemed to find some peace in the vampire's face, because she relaxed. Brandon watched them in silence, still having a hard time to believe that they had succeeded. For it did seem that they were successful: the girl showed no signs of slow mentality or aggressive behavior. The only fault was perhaps that she didn't remember anything, but Brandon didn't find that surprising. Giving thought of her condition before, Brandon was amazed that she could even talk and register things. Magic truly could do wonders.

"Do you think you can stand?" asked Alexander curiously, like a child.

The girl furrowed her dark brows, biting her lip, before slowly heaving one of her long legs over the bed's edge. Then the other. She hesitantly let her bare feet touch the cold floor, standing up straight. Varushka and Brandon were prepared to catch her if she showed any sign of not being able to walk.

She took one step, feeling odd. Her legs were numb as if they were still asleep. It didn't hurt, just felt uncomfortable. All the same, she could walk though she did it a bit unsteady. Alexander's eyes looked ready to pop out of his head and he scribbled furiously on his wrinkled skin.

"Look at you!" he cried and reached out to touch her when she came back from her short walk. "You're absolutely perfect."

He managed to stroke her side, looking completely devoted as he did so. It wasn't anything perverted over the whole scene, even if the girl was naked. Alexander was just like an artist admiring one of his finest piece of work. The girl didn't seem to look naked, because her skin with its seams and lines made her look like she was wearing a body shaped, pale outfit.

"Yes, you're perfect", repeated Alexander. "Like our own private puzzle."

The girl looked thoughtful, green eye glistening in the colorful lights, though they started to become dimmer. She licked her lips as if she was unsure what to say.

"Puzzle", she said slowly. "It sounds familiar."

This caught the other three's attention.

"How so?" Alexander asked interested, quill ready to take some notes. "Was it your name, perhaps? Someone you knew?"

"I think so", she said uncertainly, looking at her scarred, pale hands. "It meant something to me. . . . like I just needed it to be solved. I don't know. . . ."

Alexander nodded, scribbling on his nightshirt now. Varushka looked thoughtful, staring at the girl with intense eyes.

"I'll guess we could call you that", begun Brandon slowly, trying to keep his voice normal. "Puzzle, I mean."

The girl tipped her head to one side, looking at him with a pleased green eye. Brandon focused on her eye, because the hole without an eye was too uncomfortable to look at.

"Perhaps", she said, feeling better of hearing him speak to her.

Acceptance. That was what she wanted. She seemed to have gotten to the right place, the right people, to get it. Brandon smiled at her.

"Excellent idea, Brandon", agreed Alexander seriously, absently nodding but not looking up from his writing. "Puzzle. It's fitting."

"It sounds like she's an animal", Varushka said in disgust, a sneer on her pale face. "A pet."

"It can work as a surname then", said Brandon defensively, jutting his chin out.

"Can you remember your name? Any letters. . . .?"

Alexander left the question hanging in the air as the girl frowned, her eye darkening with concentration. She tried, she really did. It seemed important to these three people that she remembered and she didn't want to disappoint them. She felt like she owed them, every fiber in her body stirring and burning with gratefulness and fire. She felt safe and somewhere deep in the back of her mind she knew she hadn't been safe in a long time. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get a grip around her name. It slipped out of her mind like vapor, only letting her see glimpses of it.

"It has an 'y' in it. . . .", she said uncertainly, almost making it sound like a question as if she was unsure of the letter's name. "And a 'l' and an 'a' I think. . . ."

"Yla. . . . It sounds odd", scoffed Varushka, circling around the girl and eyeing her with a critically eye. "You'll need a stronger name."

"An elegant name", butted Alexander in, eyes gleaming like the moon. "You're a magnificent creature; you deserve a powerful name, a unique name."

The girl smiled a bit, lips barely stretching out to a pleasant smile. Neither of the others could read the meaning behind that smile. Once again, it was Brandon that came up with a name.

"How about Ylvanna?" he suggested, wiping away some sweat from his forehead with one of his hands.

The room had gone hotter and he suspected that it was because of the girl. Her golden scars were glimmering and for each of her heartbeats, a wave of heat seemed to flow through the room. Brandon saw that Alexander was sweating as well; he had some wet blotches on his nightshirt that weren't from the ink. Varushka didn't sweat, but her pale skin was adapting to a frosty, rosy color like ham. When thinking of ham, Brandon realized that he was hungry.

"How do you come up with these names?" Varushka asked him, but her tone suggested that she liked the name.

Brandon shrugged.

"I read a lot."

Alexander looked ecstatic and the girl had a soft, almost non-existing smile on her pale, scarred face.

"Ylvanna", repeated Alexander. "Ylvanna Puzzle. I like it. It sounds majestic and wild, a mouthful of mystery."

Brandon felt pleased of knowing that they liked the name. It was an honor to name this new, fascinating creature. He looked her over before asking her in a soft voice, trying to show her that he wanted to know what she thought:

"Do you like the name?"

She did a grimace and then smiled. She looked both troubled and calm.

"I do", she assured him. "It's just new to me. . . ."

"I think it's perfect", announced Alexander with the tone of a stubborn child and she smiled slightly at him. "You're different; you'll need a different name."

She sat down on the cold bed again, thinking. It felt both right and wrong that name. It was beautiful, but she didn't get the feeling that it was the name she had been graced with before. She couldn't remember. Looking up from her long, pale and scarred fingers and into the face of the three other people in the room, her family, her creators, she said:

"I'm Ylvanna Puzzle then."

. . . .

Ylvanna came to love her new family. They accepted her, made her try new things and learn about her powers and the world. Varushka was her mother, her blood flowing in Ylvanna's veins. Beneath the vampire's sarcastic and playful façade, Ylvanna came to know a warmth and fierce protectiveness. Alexander was her father, being the one who had made her body, heart and brain. He was utterly devoted to her, loving her and taught her what he knew. Brandon became like her brother, calm and carefree. When the other two treated her like an experiment from time to time, Brandon tried to act like she was human, a normal teenager. Ylvanna loved them and to her, her past didn't matter. They were her future.

She lived in the same room as she had woken up in, though it was now decorated more comfortably and warmly in the colors of autumn. Another member to her new family was a bleak, little creature called a house elf with the name Twyne. Twyne was old and belonged to Alexander even though he had been set free by Alexander of mistake. The little house elf wore a white coat and he had tiny glasses for his enormous eyes. Years of serving Alexander and putting up with his experiments had left Twyne with bad eyesight.

. . . .

End of January, 1993

"Ylvanna, we've got a gift for you."

Ylvanna looked up from her book, dark curls falling into her face. She looked happy to see them, but she frowned.

"Where's Varushka?" she asked, looking around for the vampire.

"She couldn't be here", Brandon explained as he sat down on a chair in front of her.

Ylvanna nodded in understanding. Out of all of them, Varushka was the one that came and went as she wished and could. Ylvanna had been told that it was important for all of them not to be seen. Twyne had therefore added with his magic a special protection over the room, making it even harder to find.

"Are you comfortable?" wondered Alexander, inspecting everything as he always did.

"Yes, very", Ylvanna answered. "Are we going to continue with the lessons today?"

She looked at Brandon as she said this, knowing when Alexander was deep in his own world. Brandon smiled, sniveling a bit.

"Later. First, we've got you something."

Seeing that Brandon was still feeling cold after being outside, Ylvanna put away her book and took his hands in hers. Immediately Brandon felt warm, like a newly baked pie ready to be taken out from the oven.

"Thank you", he said, meaning every word. "I don't like winter."

"I wouldn't know", said Ylvanna, biting her lip and looking at her pale hands.

Little did she know that they were as white as the snow outside. Brandon thought she looked miserable and he sighed. He rummaged his coat pocket and took out a tiny, black box.

"Here", he said, trying to get her on other thoughts.

It worked. She looked up, her green eye lighting up with interest. There was something they had learned about her; she was awfully curious and sometimes had a temper as if she was driven by a fire.

"Merry late Christmas, Ylvanna."

Carefully, Ylvanna accepted the box. It wasn't heavy, but felt smooth against her thin fingers. She opened it and on a red fabric laid a black stone. She picked it up. The stone was oval shaped and in the middle it had two thin golden circles. The markings made it look a lot like. . . .

"An eye", whispered Ylvanna and smiled at the irony.

"Yeah", Brandon said. "And it wasn't easy to get", he continued jokingly. "I had to visit Mad-Eye Moody to get it specially ordered. The old man's barkers. He almost hexed me twice during our meeting."

Ylvanna let out a low chuckle and raised the eye, admiring it in the light.

"Here, let me help you", Alexander fretted over her and taking the eye from her. "Now, lean back."

Ylvanna did as he asked, turning her head so she was facing Alexander. He had one of his old hands under her chin, tilting her head up. The other was carefully and lovingly placing the eye into her empty eye socket. As soon as the cold, black surface touched the golden threads, they embraced the eye. Ylvanna drew back from Alexander. It tickled. She blinked and when she opened her eyes again, she could see with both her eyes, the other sharper than the other.

"Look at you!" cried Alexander emotionally, clapping his hands in excitement. "Magnificent as always."

Brandon watched Ylvanna look around the room, taking everything in for a second time. Her new eye was bottomless and emotionless. It's elegant, but when looking at her; her scarred face and mismatched eyes, he couldn't help but think of Mad-Eye and how suspicious he was about Brandon asking about his eye. He swallowed.

"Thank you", Ylvanna said and kissed Alexander on the cheek and the gesture got the old man's eyes to water.

She gave Brandon a hug and he felt her warm body through his thick layer of clothes. Her body temperature was abnormal for a human, but most of their tests hinted that she was mostly human.

He breathed in the scent of her which was purely magical. It was strange how this peculiar creature could've wormed her way into his heart.

Ylvanna pulled away from him, some leftovers of snow now on her body. She smiled brightly, the golden lines of the new eye catching the light.

"Do we start today's lesson then?"

Her enthusiasm for both learning history and fighting, pushing her own limits, were contagious. Brandon smiled wryly back, taking of his long coat. Alexander prepared his quill and parchment, a fierce light in his eyes.

"Let's get started."

Ylvanna smiled, both her eyes burning.


So, that was that.

zverenysh is Russian and means 'young one'. I got the translation from Google translate, so I hope it's somewhat right.

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