A/N: I'm putting an explanation of the family relations in the A/N at the end of the chapter to straighten out any confusion.

until the fantasy came crashing down.

(14 November 1990)

"Can you identify this flower?" her mother asks, holding up a single blue flower between them for Luna's perusal. The nine-year-old is sitting on a stool in their greenhouse, a number of picked flowers spread out before her, while her mother asks her to identify the names and then properties of each of them. Despite her father's views that Luna should be kept from the complexity of political life as long as possible, her mother is determined to teach her everything she knows so that the girl will be prepared when it comes time for her to go to school.

"It's a forget-me-not."

"And what can you tell me about the magical properties and uses of forget-me-nots?"

Luna is about to do just that when her aunt breezes into the sanctuary, the train of her blue gown billowing out and floating a few inches above the ground. The lady moved in with them about a week prior. It was supposedly motivated by her desire to spend more time with her brother, but Luna knows that something was off about it. Her mother and aunt are too tense and prone to whispering amongst themselves for it to have really been that. "Pandora, someone was following me today; I'm sure of it this time."

Pandora glances at her daughter before deciding to let her stay for this. She's been keeping it from her because it might affect the girl's relationship with her cousin and endanger her, but she has been going wonderfully with her Occlumency lessons, and it's important that she knows the situation before she goes off to school two years hence. She's protected while under her mother's care, but out there she'll be susceptible to anything her uncle might do to try to manipulate her in accordance with his own ends. "Did you shake them?"

"Yes, I think so." Callidora finally notices her niece's presence, and she ruffles the girl's hair fondly as they exchange greetings.

"You need to tell him that you've changed your mind," Pandora insists. "My brother is persistent; he'll only keep coming until you prove you're not a liability."

"He's my son," she retorts. "I'm not asking to make it publically known, just to be allowed to see him. I should have the right to that, at least, and no one would think it strange if I went with you or Xeno."

Luna watches her curiously; she didn't know Aunt Callidora had a son, and doesn't know why Uncle Lucius would be gatekeeper to her seeing him, or why her parents' presence might temper his prohibition.

"It's imperative to him that no one ever suspects anything. In his mind, if you get private contact with Draco, you'll want more. If you don't tell Lucius you've changed your mind and make an oath not to reveal what happened to anybody else, he will chase you out of the country."

The girl blinks, then tilts her head as she looks at her aunt, her skin the colour of snow and hair not far from it, her blue eyes so pale they could be considered colourless in certain light.

"I just want my son. He's my son."

"I know. But that's the kind of talking that will get you silenced. I'd suggest you leave the country for a while. Send a letter to Lucius to tell him you're conceding. Then wait. Wait until Draco is seventeen, or until he's finished school, and Lucius has less control over him." Suddenly, Pandora starts, and looks around frantically. "The estate's protective wards are being attacked. It's him."

"We need to get out of here – "

"No, it's too late for that. It wasn't designed to keep family away; it won't hold him off for long, and if we flee it'll look more suspicious." Pandora tugs Luna off her stool and kisses the top of her head forcefully before casting a series of anti-notice and anti-detection spells over her. "Luna, I love you. Go; hide among the orange trees. Don't come out until he's gone, whatever you do."

Luna nods frantically before leaning up to hug her. "Love you too, Mummy," she whispers, before darting away to the indicated hiding spot.

Callidora starts again, her tone frantic. However much she'd spoken of defying Lucius or going around his back, she'd never wanted an actual confrontation with the man. "We need to get out of here. We can Apparate – "

"No. You're going to tell him you're conceding. Callie, it's the only way."

"Whatis the only way?" Lucius' booming voice echoes through the small greenhouse, inflecting ever so slightly on that first word to intone a touch of menace into the sentence. She'd heard him be imposing before when scolding Draco for doing something he considered untoward, and her mother had warned her not to push his buttons, but she'd never heard anything so frightening in her life, or been as sure that something bad was going to happen.

"We were talking about ways of growing flowers," Callidora lies, her voice shaky.

"Really? And what did you come up with?"

"Callie – " Pandora begins, and Lucius' gaze flicks over to her, and Luna just wants them both to get out of there.

"I want to see him, Lucius. It's my right."

"No, actually, it isn't. You agreed on that when the arrangement was made."

"I don't want to tell anyone, I really don't, but if you try to restrict my access to my son…"

"You'll what? Tell on me like some infant who isn't getting their way? Come on, Callidora; I'm giving you one chance. Make an Unbreakable Vow not to ever tell anybody… else about this, or to try to get it contact with him, and you can walk. I'm sure Pandora would be the binder."

"I can't," Callidora says, and within an instant Lucius has hissed those two final words and a flash of green light fills up the greenhouse, mingling with the green of the plants. When it's receded, all that's left is a stone-faced Lucius watching Pandora as she looks down in horror at the body of her sister-in-law.

"You didn't have to kill her," Pandora scolds, diverting her attention back to her brother. "You could have Obliviated her."

"It's harder to be certain of success when the subject's mind is never fully here nor there, like hers was. There's more chance of missing a hidden connection. I couldn't take that risk. What did she tell you?"

"Everything, as far as I'm aware," she admits. "Narcissa's infertile, so you agreed that you and Callidora would have a baby that you and Cissy would raise as your own. But Callidora started to have second thoughts about the privacy clause."

"Indeed. You won't tell anyone, I trust."

"I won't have to. The Black lordship won't accept him, Lucius. You can fool people, but you can't fool the world. One day it will come out."

"You will mourn for her."

"Of course. She was my friend."

"I am truly sorry, then," Lucius says. "It pains me that she brought you into this. It wasn't your fight, but she's thrown you into the line of fire as if it were."

"Lucius," Pandora hisses, and Luna isn't sure why she sounds so worried. "I'm not going to tell anyone."

"But if it comes out one day, you will. And I can't risk that. I'm sorry, Pan."

Luna's gazes flickers from his sorrowful but set face to her mother's resigned one just as those two words are repeated, bringing the ominous light through once again. She sees her mother breathing, and then the flash comes, and then she isn't anymore, and she knows that she never will again. Tears well up in Luna's eyes as sobs threaten to come bursting out, but she holds them in by sheer force of will and desperation, remaining dry and quiet as Lucius messes up her aunt's clothes, ripping them and dirtying them with soil from nearby pot plants and making it look like she's been mugged. Tears streak down her face as he turns to her mother, but she still remains silent, watching as he carefully levitates her body and walks it over to the trapdoor, opening it with his unencumbered hand and slipping down it like a python. Luna wants to run, then. He's gone, and her mother only wanted her to stay until he left. But she doesn't know how long he'll be or if he's called others, and she's terrified that he'll catch sight of her as she runs to the house and realise that she had to have been in the greenhouse too. He killed the sister he grew up with out of the possibility that she might someday explain what happened; he wouldn't hesitate to silence the niece he rarely sees.

So she remains there as he returns and Apparates away with her aunt's body, and remains there, face wet and sobs loud now, as the sun rises to its peak and then starts its steady decline. She remains there until her father comes home, and then she runs at him, and he hugs her and asks what's wrong, and she takes him down that trapdoor, where they find Pandora's work area a mess as if an experimental hex had gone terribly wrong.

And, as her father breaks down in tears, she remains there with him, too.

A/N: Xenophilius and Callidora are siblings; Lucius and Pandora are siblings. They all knew one another since they were at school. Xenophilius married Pandora. Lucius married Narcissa. However, Lucius and Narcissa were unable to have children. Due to whatever political and personal reasons, they chose not to divorce. Lucius and Narcissa went on 'holiday' overseas while Callidora was supposedly off searching for magical creatures, and during this time Callidora gave birth to Lucius' son Draco. They all agreed that Draco would be raised as Narcissa's and that nobody would know.