CHAPTER 1 – June 2014

"Gemini, do you mind staying behind for a while?" Professor Slughorn called amidst the noise of the other seventh years cleaning up and leaving the classroom.

"Yes, Professor." Gemini waved her wand and her cauldron floated back to the cupboards. Her book and potion ingredients flew into her bag while the rest of the ingredients flew back into the cupboards. The cabinets to the cauldrons closed shut, startling a Hufflepuff girl trying to arrange her ingredients in the other cupboards. Gemini stifled a giggle, and merely shrugged at the girl before turning to Professor Slughorn's table.

"Tut tut, Ms. Ridley. Rules are rules—no magic." Professor Slughorn said sternly, though he failed in fighting back a smile. "But that was impressive. One wave and all the things go in their proper place. Requires a lot of focus, 'specially for someone as young as you."

"Thank you professor." Gemini smiled. Professor Slughorn gave her a secret smile before he turned to the remaining students, waving good-bye to some while reminding others of the dinner party after their N.E.W.T.s. Finally, the last student made his way out and Slughorn turned to her.

"Now Miss Ridley, just because you don't mention anything doesn't mean I don't know…" Professor Slughorn opened a compartment in his table and pulled out a bottle of wine. "I don't wish to be inappropriate as a teacher by giving gifts, but it's your birthday so I hope you don't mind…"

"Thanks, professor." Gemini grinned. "I can share this with Abigail and the others."

"Ah yes, Miss Flint and your other Slytherin girls." Professor Slughorn smiled. "Enjoy it, it's really aged so you girls could get a kick out of it. Your birthday's on the day you depart from Hogwarts so you could enjoy it on the train!"

"Wait, how did you know my birthday was coming up?"

"Of course I'd remember your birthday! It's not every day I go to an orphanage in Kent to meet a witch!' Professor Slughorn laughed. He smiled and patted her on the head. "I remember, though my memory prevents me from remembering what I had for breakfast the other day. You were eleven, and Headmaster Flitwick assigned me to look for you. After all, you wouldn't believe an owl who gave you some random letter now, would you? Didn't think so. Why, I remember your look of surprise when I told you magic is real!"

~0~

Gemini could remember that day—it was the first day that a lot of things made sense. Before she met Professor Slughorn, she was one of the oldest children in the orphanage. A lot of people came to adopt orphans there, and Gemini had been picked so many times that she had lost count. But whenever she started to feel at home, a lot of unexplained events started occurring—some of them dangerous accidents—and no family had been willing to keep her for more than a few months. She had always thought there was something wrong with her, but Professor Slughorn came and told her she was a witch and that it was normal for young witches to not be able to control their powers at first.

He explained to her about Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a boarding school in Scotland for people like her. She would have to return to the orphanage during the summer, but because Hogwarts had large donations from wizarding families, she would have a small allowance to be able to go there, and he would help her with getting things she needed for school. It took the whole afternoon to explain the magical world to her, and he hadn't even finished when the orphanage matron warned that visiting hours were almost up.

"I'll return tomorrow to explain further, my dear." Slughorn said as he stood up from the chair. "But I don't wish to leave you, as they put it, on edge, so if you have any question…"

"I do, actually." Gemini said sheepishly. "Since you have magic, can you tell me who my parents are?"

His smile disappeared. "I…I'm afraid I don't know, my dear." He said sadly. "There's no magic that can find that out—at least none that I know of."

"Oh." She said, trying to contain her disappointment. "Well, did you know them?"

"I'm afraid I don't know any Ridley—"

"I'm not a Ridley. Ms. Hastings said that's the name the government gave me for a last name."

"Ahh…well…" Professor Slughorn looked uncomfortably at his feet. "You see, Ms. Ridley, being a witch doesn't exactly mean that at least one parent of yours is a witch or wizard…"

And so it began again. When it was time to leave, Professor Slughorn merely gave a flick of his wand and, when Ms. Hastings went to check her, left the room quietly in a trance-like state. He stayed late until the evening, explaining more about where Gemini could have possibly come from. She was disappointed, as even if she was a witch, her chances of finding her true parents haven't even narrowed the slightest.

"I have this." Gemini removed her necklace and gave it to Professor Slughorn. "Ms. Hastings said that it was the only thing I had when I was left here in the orphanage. If it's my parents…can't I do anything with it?"

Professor Slughorn took it tentatively in his hands. It was a black necklace with a metal bird skull. He rubbed the skull between two fingers. It almost looked like a familiar mask, like…Could it be? He tried to hide the dread as he looked at the girl. Gemini Ridley looked like a precocious young girl with pale skin and black curly hair. By her age listed on her file, Slughorn deduced that she was born around the time Albus died, and her parents were most likely young elopers who regretted their decisions after the Second Wizarding War. There was also a possibility she had muggle parents who gave her up at the same time. There was also a chance the parents were dead. No, there were too many options. The necklace most likely came from a muggle parent. A really macabre parent. "I'm afraid not, my dear, especially if the parent is a muggle. Tell me, do you remember anything about your family? Anything at all?"

"Not really…" She said sullenly. She could only remember the feeling of being cold from time to time, which made her believe that her parents were probably from Northumberland or Scotland. She remembered a woman's voice, but she couldn't remember what the woman was saying. She remembered the sound of a man repeating something…but no matter how she tried, she couldn't remember what he kept saying.

Professor Slughorn grimaced at the little girl. "It's all right, m'dear. Now you can start thinking about the future. I'll return within the week if you need to talk to some more about the magic world, and around August, I—or our groundskeeper, Hagrid—will take you to Diagon Alley in London—that's where you can buy most of the things for school…"

And so it began. Gemini was introduced to a world that she believed only existed in story books. If her first trip to London was exciting, it was even more so when she entered a pub called the Leaky Cauldron with Professor Slughorn tapping a brick wall to a secret but giant street huma—muggles couldn't see. Professor Slughorn helped her find her robes, bought her first owl, whom she named Orion. She eventually made it to Hogwarts and was sorted into Slytherin House. She was determined to be a great witch, and if her parents couldn't see that, she was going to prove it to herself. Her determination to succeed made her excel in all her classes, and slowly became friends with the other Slytherins, who had learned of her story and believed that she was most likely a half-blood or pureblood because, as a few had whispered to her: no mudblood could ever be that good.

And slowly, she believed it. On her first Charms class, she was called by Professor Finnigan for being too noisy and was asked to levitate her feather in front of the class; she proceeded to make every feather in the room float. In Transfiguration, they were assigned to turn a needle into a roach; Gemini proceeded to produce a roach that dissolved into an army of tiny roaches that attacked a nearby Slytherin boy who called her a mudblood the day before. In Herbology, Professor Longbottom made them stick an arm in a hole of a giant box containing a small amount of Devil's Snare, and they all had to take turns finding a way how to get out; everyone struggled, but when it was Gemini's turn, it was as if the plant was reluctant to grab her, and she realized she just had to keep still before the tendrils quickly released her.

She became one of the brightest, prettiest, and most ambitious students of her year—the envy of those arrogant, patronizing Ravenclaws and the vain and shallow Gryffindor girls—with the help of some of her friends, of course. She joined the Slug Club, and became one of Professor Slughorn's favorites. She was the hands down shoe-in for the Slytherin Prefects on her fifth year. And now, she was Head Girl. She wondered if her parent amounted to anything as close to what she accomplished.

~0~

"Oh Gemini," Gemini broke out of her trance as Professor Slughorn reached out for a hug. "It is as if just yesterday you were sorted into my House, and now you're graduating all of a sudden. I know this is an inappropriate—and quite favoritism thing to say—but I like to think of you as the daughter I've raised."

"Awww, thanks Professor." Gemini said, returning his hug. "I'll just leave this in my room before headin to Transfiguration."

"Yes, yes—I forgot you're so busy. Head Girl, Slytherin Keeper, and with N.E.W.T.s coming in a week. Such a good girl." Professor Slughorn said proudly. "Go, I'll see you at dinner."

The rest of Gemini's day seemed to move incredibly slowly. She was itching for a Time Turner to speed up time, waiting for after dinner. Finally, after her classes and finishing up on her Head Girl duties in delegating her duties to the other prefects, she headed to the Hospital Tower, to the Prefect's Bathroom.

"Squeaky clean." She told the statue guarding the door, who slid to one side to let her in. The room lit up when she stepped inside, and her favorite scent of mangoes filled the air. The mermaids on the stained glass windows waved at her and started playing harp music. Gemini sighed at the calming effect it had after a long day. She was aiming for top marks in her N.E.W.T.s, and there was little time to relax.

"Gemini." She was startled to see the Head Boy, Alexander Wood, there, wrapped in a bathrobe but still dripping wet. "Nice to see you here. Sorry about overstepping my time."

"I thought you were leading the Gryffindors to your Dormitories tonight?" She asked. Alexander merely shrugged. "Well, whatever. If you don't mind, it's my turn to use the bathroom."

Alexander grinned at her, opening his bathrobe. Gemini didn't flinch as he confidently stripped and went back to the tub. Alexander was the Seeker for the Gryffindor team and was muscular like a girl's daydream, but she knew only one person who had a tattoo like that on his chest. "Actually, I think I'll stay. Don't worry, I'll just watch—unless you ask me otherwise."

Gemini smirked, stripping down nonchalantly until she was in her underwear. "Is it the full moon already, Teddy? My, that was fast"

In response, Edward Lupin morphed back into himself, with his familiar shaggy hair, black eyes, and wild smile that he used when his animalistic instincts kicked in during the full moon. "Get over here before I turn into a wolf just looking at you."

Gemini grinned wickedly before provocatively stripping the rest of her underwear and slowly getting in the water to sit next to him. "And your little Veela girlfriend?"

Teddy looked at Gemini Ridley. She was the total opposite of Victoire Weasley, and the only thing they had in common was the pale skin. Gemini was a seventh year Slytherin—a year older than Teddy—while Victoire a fourth year Gryffindor. Where Victoire was a blonde with willowy grace, Gemini had black hair to match her dark and mischievous personality. Victoire was an angel, no doubt, and Teddy loved her so much, but there was something about Gemini—a kind of dark, magnetic beauty that was even more irresistible when the full moon came. She was charming when she wanted to be, and no matter how much he tried, he could never get past the façade to guess what she was thinking. She was from Slytherin too, and their forbidden romance made it much more exciting. Teddy wasn't a werewolf like his father, but like Victoire's father, he had wolf-like tendencies, one of which was giving into strong desires.

"It's been four months, Gemini." He pouted. "You care about my girlfriend's feelings all of a sudden? A Slytherin girl with a conscience?"

She scoffed, pulling him closer to her into a kiss. "Of course not." She said in between kisses. "And as for her feelings…well, what she doesn't know won't hurt her, right?"

He put his hands on her back, pulling her closer. The slippery helped and their bodies were pressed together. "No, it won't."