Dragon Heartstring

Diagon Alley was bustling with wizards and witches going to and fro, several with young children. A few unfortunate older children were being accompanied by their mothers as they shopped for school supplies, looking longingly at the ones who were trusted enough by their parents to do it on their own.

The cobblestone street she walked on, flanked on either side by her mom, daddy, and Uncle Keenan – her godfather – stirred up nostalgia in her. The street in Ceserova Market had been cobble-stoned as well until recently (it was now cement stones) and she missed the uneven, multicolor stones. When she was much younger and her feet were rather small, she would hop from stone to stone, avoiding the cracks in between. It had started when she overheard some muggle children saying 'step on a crack, break your mother's back'. She had not wanted to break her mother's back, and so started to avoid cracks until Ronan found out her reason for doing so and swiftly informed her that what the children had said was not true.

They were currently headed to Gringotts, the wizarding bank run by goblins, as Uncle Keenan had told her. They were quite nasty, he said, the goblins. It was partway down the alley and Nyssa noticed a sign nearby to the right that was labeled 'Knockturn Alley'. The bank was a snow-white multi-storied marble building; white stairs leading up to large bronze doors. Two goblins stood on both sides of the door, wearing gold and red uniforms, and staring contemptuously at the many wizards and witches scurrying through the alley.

After entering the bronze doors, there was another set of silver doors Nyssa and her party had to go through before reaching a huge marble hall. Long counters stretched from end to the other. At the counters, every two feet or so, sat a goblin waiting to be of service. All of the goblins had snarky expressions, eyeing the witches and wizards that approached them scornfully.

Keenan led the way for the group, approaching a goblin at the left counter halfway down the vast hall. "Hello, there," he greeted, smiling.

The goblin frowned in return and asked quite bluntly, "What services do you require today?"

Phoenix stepped forward, withdrawing a note from his pocket, glanced at it, then looked back up, "We need to access Vault 821."

This time the goblin raised a brow, narrowed his eyes and leaned forward towards Phoenix. "That is the vault of Regulus Black. It has not been opened for decades. Do you have identification?"

Phoenix, as if expecting this response, had already withdrawn another piece of paper. Staring hard, Nyssa thought that it looked like a family tree, though she couldn't be sure because the goblin had quickly snatched it up, turning it round and round in an attempt to see if it was false.

"I see, yes, follow me." He handed the paper back to Phoenix, who stuffed it back into the inside of his robes, picked up a lantern beneath the desk, opened a door in the counter to allow the four entrance, and headed to a door on the wall. The door was rusted and had several locks that the goblin swiftly did away with. They were all seated in a cart that Nyssa thought resembled those in muggle mines and off they went, sloping up and down, turning sharply left or right. It was like a very long maze, going by extraordinarily fast. Nyssa suspected that no one but the goblins would ever be able to remember the paths to each vault.

"Mom, are you alright?" She had noticed that her mom had one hand to her forehead and the other was clutching her belly.

Lyra looked at her daughter, shook her head, and closed her eyes tightly. This was the second time now that she'd been in one of these carts; the first was when she went with Keenan to his vault. Keenan's had been closer to the surface and the ride had been short, yet she'd still gotten sick. She knew that she'd be very ill after going down and then back up again, considering this vault was much deeper.

After a while, the cart stopped, and Nyssa was staring at a dragon. The dragon had pearly scales and glittering multi-colored eyes with no pupils; it could have been called pretty were it not a fire-breathing, giant-winged beast. She watched as the goblin exited the cart, digging a raw piece of meat out of a sack he'd picked up in the cart and threw it towards the dragon that was eyeing them all guardedly. Its eyes immediately looked to the meat, picked it up between its teeth and retreated to a corner. The goblin then walked up to the grand door the dragon had been standing in front of, all sorts of complex twisting locks covering the door. He placed his palm on the door three times before it opened, revealing heaps of gold, silver, and bronze coins and several other glittering trinkets that Nyssa was sure were worth a mound of money.

Phoenix exited the cart, guiding Nyssa along with him, while Lyra, who was trying not to spew her breakfast everywhere, and Keenan waited in the cart. Reaching into his robes, Phoenix pulled out a large leather sack, and began to fill it with gold coins, then silver, and a few bronze. Nyssa watched this process, the goblin looking back and forth between father and daughter.

Once finished, father and daughter headed back to the cart, the goblin resealing the door and prodding the dragon back into a guarding position with a long steel rod. This resulted in a frown from Lyra, who thought it inhumane to treat a creature that way, though Phoenix and Keenan both remained expressionless, leaving Nyssa feeling conflicted when they left the bank as to whether she should feel sorry for the dragon or be indifferent.

Having already purchased her potions supplies and robes when Andreus took her to Ceserova Market, the group bypassed Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions and headed into Amanuensis Quills, because Nyssa insisted she needed brand-new quills. She picked out two quills, a deep purple and pure white. From there, they headed to Flourish and Blotts, where they bought all her school books, next to Whizz Hard Books so that Nyssa could pick up a few 'light' reading books, and then Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour for a short stop (Nyssa ordered three scoops of chocolate).

"Where to next?" asked Nyssa, as she finished up her ice cream.

Keenan grinned in response, "Ollivander's, for your wand."

Her wand, Nyssa had been waiting for the day that she would get her wand since she went with her mom and Tristan to find his. It was an exciting moment, finding a wand. The wand chooses the wizard, the shopkeeper had told Tristan, and then, winking at Nyssa, or the witch. Walking to Ollivander's, she felt as light as a cloud, but when they reached the shop a chill ran up her spin. Magic was teeming from the tiny shop. She looked up at the peeling gold letters over the door of the shop that read: Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.

And then, with Keenan holding the door open for her, Phoenix, and Lyra, she entered the shop. If the outside was tiny, that was nothing compared to the inside. It was incredibly cramped, thousand of narrow boxes containing what could only be wands were piled right up to the ceiling, and the whole place had a thick layer of dust causing Lyra to sneeze. There was already a family at the counter, speaking to the shopkeeper. Three of them – the father, daughter, and son – had flaming red hair, whereas what looked to be the mother had curly brown hair. The daughter currently had a short red-wooded wand in her hand, flicking it up and down before laying it back down.

The bushy red-haired daughter turned to see the new customers, her blues eyes catching Nyssa's amber. "Hello," she said. "Are you headed to the Hogwarts in the fall as well?"

Nyssa nodded, walking up to the counter, inspired by the greeting. "Yes, I'm very excited."

The daughter's eyes widened as she continued to stare at Nyssa, who now had a measuring tape shooting through her nose, ignoring the wand the shopkeeper was offering for her to try. "Are you American?"

"Yes, but my dad's family is from England, I think," Nyssa replied, trying to keep track of the fast moving measuring tape. "My name's Nyssa Valentine. And you?"

"Rose Weasley," the daughter replied, now picking up the wand to try. It shot off blue and silver sparks as she did, which Nyssa watched curiously. Her parents both seemed to be pleased at this, so it must've meant it was the wand for Rose.

"There you are, Mrs. Weasley," said the shopkeeper, setting a wand in front of Nyssa for her to try, "Beech, Unicorn hair, 10 ¾ inches, surprisingly swishy. This wand is not for the unintelligent mind, young lady." Smiling, he then proceeded to snatch the wand Nyssa had just tried – resulting in the picture frame on the wall in front of her bursting into bits – from her and set off to find another one.

"How many wands did you try before you found that one?" Nyssa asked, gesturing to the wand Rose now held proudly in her hands.

Rose looked to Nyssa, grinning ear to ear, "Only three. Don't worry if you have to try several, though, my uncle Harry said he went through a barrel full."

That definitely did reassure Nyssa, who felt that Rose was perhaps a future friend in the making. As Rose and her family had yet to leave, Nyssa decided to engage in a bit more conversation with the girl, "Do you know what house you want to be in yet?"

"Mum and dad were in Gryffindor, but," she leaned closer to Nyssa to say this in a lower voice, "personally, I'd prefer to be in Ravenclaw."

"My godfather was in Ravenclaw, that's the house I want to be in too!" Nyssa exclaimed, attracting the attention of Rose's brother. He stared shyly at Nyssa from behind his mother.

Rose glanced back at her brother when she saw Nyssa looking at him, "That's my little brother, Hugo. Do you have a brother?"

"Three. And a sister. But none of them are close to me in age, except for Tristan, but he's –" She was cut off as tried another wand the shopkeeper set in front of her, then set it down again when it turned the shopkeeper's coffee mug into a coffee fountain.

"No worries," the shopkeeper assured her, "we'll find your wand."

After fifteen wand tests or so, Nyssa's parents and godfather had started to talk to Rose's parents, while Rose and Nyssa continued on discussing a variety of topics (upcoming classes, house elves – Rose told Nyssa all about her mom's house elf protection act, and family members). The shopkeeper looked exhausted but still sported a bright smile on his face and had a certain bounce in his step as he walked back once again with a wand box.

"Here, Cypress, Dragon Heartstring, 12 ¼ inches, slightly yielding. Go on, try it out." He watched Nyssa hesitantly, but nearly burst into tears when the wand shot off swirling bright gold sparks. "Yes, that's the one. Owners of cypress wands, Ms. Valentine, will willingly sacrifice themselves for loved ones and tend to be quite heroic. It has been said that there has yet to have been an owner that did not die a heroic death."

Briefly, Nyssa wondered how he knew her surname, but nearly rolled her eyes at herself for the thought. The answer was that he obviously was listening when she told Rose her name. But that brief thought quickly dissipated as she pondered the shopkeeper's mention of cypress wand owners dying heroic deaths. She didn't see herself as much of a heroic person, nor did she want to die a heroic death; death from old age would be much preferable.

Rose was beaming at Nyssa, still holding her own new wand protectively as the two girls left the shop, both promising to meet up at school, regardless of what house they were sorted in. They said goodbye, Rose saying she was heading to the apothecary to get her potions supplies, and then Nyssa turned to her parents and godfather, holding her new wand up in front of them proudly.

"Isn't it beautiful?"

Lyra laughed airily, "Yes, my love, it is very lovely."

"Longer than my wand," said Keenan, staring at the pocket his wand was sticking up from. "I s'pose that means you have more magical potential than me."

Nyssa's eyes lit up at this thought. She had been able to master a bit of control over her accidental magic once she'd learned what it was she was doing, so she'd always hoped that meant she was going to be a fantastic witch. "Is that what the length means?"

"Not necessarily, though it's been guessed. Some say the longer the wand is, the bigger the personality of its owner."

"Our Nyssa's always had a great personality," commented Lyra, her hands lightly placed upon Nyssa's shoulders. Nyssa shied away from her mom's compliment, averting her eyes to the cobblestone street as her cheeks reddened. She had never been able to take compliments well; being boastful, it just was not in her nature.

"Are you sure you don't want to head back home and go to the Salem Witches' Institute?" asked Phoenix jokingly, knowing that his daughter was set on her current school of choice. Once she was set on something there was no use trying to change her mind. He'd learnt that very early on, when she was five and had pitched a fit over the outfit she intended to wear on her first day of 'early witching' classes. Lyra would usually have been the one dealing with the outfit, but she'd left during the middle of the night when Andreus' Headmaster had called to say that he had come down with dragon pox. It had thus been left up to Phoenix to pick out an outfit (a purple skirt and light blue shirt was his final choice), but Nyssa adamantly refused until he relented and contacted his mother for assistance. His mother had been able to quickly resolve the ordeal, picking out a lovely ensemble that Nyssa was so delighted with she hugged her grandmother around the middle.

"Dad," Nyssa whined, having already heard this joking tone several times over the last weeks; the nearer the time for her to go away came, the more her daddy mentioned her enrolling in a school close to home.

Phoenix held up his hands in front of his chest defensively, "Alright, alright. It was only a suggestion."

"Oh, my," Lyra suddenly gasped, staring at a clock hanging in a nearby shop window. The time, according to the clock, was 6:00 PM. "It's late. We'd better head back now."

"I wish you'd stayed with me," Keenan moaned, "I don't get to see my god-daughter enough as it is." And he enveloped Nyssa in a hug, his arms easily wrapping around her body.

"Imagine how Alcina feels. Nyssa chose to go to your alma mater, not hers."

"That's right," Keenan grinned, pulling Nyssa back from himself to give her a sloppy kiss on the cheek. He remembered sitting at his desk, his secretary frantically trying to clean up the spilt coffee on his desk with her scarf while completely forgetting she could use magic, when the owl flew in delivering Nyssa's letter. Once he'd seen who the letter was from, he cleaned up the spilt coffee with a flick of his wand and sent the secretary away, ripping it open. His delight with the contents was evident to his fellow governors of Hogwarts when he waltzed into their meeting two hours later and loudly proclaimed that they were going to admit his god-daughter, regardless of what country she came from. No one had disagreed, though some questioned why an American witch would choose to go to a British institution when she had perfectly acceptable schools in the United States.

"Well, come here then," Phoenix called to Nyssa, offering his hand to her.

Nyssa groaned, "Daddy, I hate apparition." She did, really. It was probably the most horrible form of transportation in the world, not to mention the risk of being spliced in two.

Keenan pushed her closer to Phoenix and watched as Nyssa reluctantly took her dad's hand. "Go on, you'll survive." She sent him once last pout before Phoenix spun around, disappearing with Nyssa and Lyra. Pulling out his money pouch, he checked how many galleons he had left, and deciding that there was enough for a drink or two, set off for the Leaky Cauldron for some firewhiskey.


Phoenix, Lyra, and Nyssa arrived in front of a large black gate; Nyssa was dramatically thanking 'Merlin' for her intact body parts, counting her fingers and checking her elbows as her parents watched bemusedly. It was during this time that the gate opened on its own, allowing the three to enter. Tall shrubbery was on either side of the long path they walked, which lead up to a huge, castle-like house. There were two towers on each side of the house, one currently occupied Nyssa and the other, the owner's only son. Stone gargoyles guarded the steps up to the large silver front door, encrusted with the family's crest. This door also opened on its own to allow entrance to the three.

Nyssa happily ran inside, her mom shouting after her to slow down. But she let that slip through one ear and out the other, her only focus being on finding the blonde-haired boy who lived in the tower opposite the one she stayed in to show off her wand. Having come to know that he was very attached to books, she assumed he would be near them, and his favorite books, she knew, were kept in the family den.

"Scorpius," she shouted upon entering the den, running to the blonde-haired boy sitting in a corner, a large tome covering his arms from his hand to elbow. Pulling her wand from inside her cloak, she presented it in front of his face, forcing him to lay the tome on his lap. "Isn't it beautiful?"

He looked at her with an agitated expression; she had interrupted his reading, which he'd already informed her was something she was not to do. But seeing the bright smile upon her face he could not help it when he offered one back. "What sort of wood is it?"

"Cypress."

"Core?"

"Dragon heartstring, like yours."

That was true. His wand core was also dragon heartstring, though his wood was pine. His grandfather had been quite disappointed, saying that it should have been elm, as that sort of wood chose true pure-bloods. He also remembered his remark that no Malfoy had ever had such a flimsy wood as pine. Later at home, both of his parents had assured him that his grandfather was wrong and his wand was perfectly fine. He was still debating on whether he believed that or not.

"What length did you say yours was?" Nyssa asked, obviously unaware at the inner turmoil her raising of the wand subject had just brought up.

"Eleven and two-fourths inches," he replied, and quirked an eyebrow when she looked down at him smugly.

"Mine's twelve and one-fourth inches."

"So?"

"Did you know that the length tells you the magical potential of the owner?"

With a frown, he replied, "That's not true."

"Might be."

A sudden pop distracted the two from any further conversation. Gurgle, Scorpius' family's house elf was staring up at the two, clutching the white-cloth over his chest hesitantly. "Master says it is time for dinner, sir and madam."

Scorpius glanced up at an ornate wall clock on the opposite wall from where he sat, and then looked to Nyssa. "You were gone a while, weren't you? What took you so long?"

Nyssa shrugged, following the nervous Gurgle from the den, Scorpius now walking quickly behind her to catch up, "Have you been to Gringotts?"

"Of course," he called, still a few steps behind. For now, he cursed his short legs and looked forward to the day that he would be able to easily catch up or even stride ahead of Nyssa. "Why?"

"Does your family have a dragon guarding your vault?"

"No, it's a sphinx." He finally caught up to her, breathing more heavily than normal and glaring at the back of Gurgle's head for not having slowed down for him. The elf had seemed to prefer Nyssa over him ever since she arrived. "Much more annoying than dragons, sphinxes are."

Gurgle made a sharp turn to the left, causing Scorpius to plow into Nyssa, sending the girl stumbling forward into the dining room. Once she'd regained her footing, she turned to glare at Scorpius, who was looking back apologetically. "It was the elf's fault."

"Sure, blame it on the elf, Mr. Clumsy," was the cool reply from Nyssa, who promptly turned around and marched to an open seat at the table. Scorpius lowered his shoulders slightly and took the open seat beside Nyssa, hoping that she would get over her petty anger during the course of dinner.

"I see you two are getting along swimmingly still," commented Scorpius' pretty, light brown-haired mother, Astoria. She had extremely pale white skin, emerald green eyes, and long slender fingers.

Lyra calmly sipped the red wine in her hand, twirling the wine in the glass round and round during intervals, "I hope you two are placed in the same house." She tucked a few of her brown locks behind her right ear lobe, smiling at the two children. Their families got on well, in fact, Phoenix had told her, the Valentines and Malfoys were distantly related. The thought of Nyssa having at least one person she knew nearby and the Malfoy family in close proximity comforted her. "You'll be the only person Nyssa knows at Hogwarts."

"No, he won't," Nyssa countered, looking up from her sautéed potatoes and grilled fish, "That girl I met today, Rose Weasley, is a first-year too." The bushy redhead had appeared to be someone she could easily form a friendship with and she hoped that Rose thought the same of her.

"Weasley?" It was Scorpius' father, Draco, who asked this, his blue eyes looking at Nyssa. He had the same light blonde hair as Scorpius, was tall and thin; Scorpius looked like the younger version of him.

"Yes," it was Phoenix who responded, "Lyra and I spoke to her parents, Ron and Hermione Weasley. They are one of the twenty-eight, aren't they?" By twenty-eight, he meant the twenty-eight purely pure-blood families of Britain, of course. He was proud to say that the Valentine family was one of the seventeen purely pure-blood families of the United States.

"Granger," Draco paused, "I mean, Hermione, is a muggle-born."

"Blood-traitors, then?"

Draco nodded slowly in reply, obviously much more uncomfortable with the topic of blood than Phoenix. It was a reminder of how different their young lives had been, yet how similar. Draco, like Phoenix, had grown up being told that he was superior to other witches and wizards due to being pure-blood, but Phoenix had not been all but forced to join a group of followers of the darkest wizard in current times. The wizarding war in Britain had barely had an effect on American wizards and witches, though at the time they had sympathized with the British and their government sent dark wizard catchers to help in the fight against Voldemort. And so Phoenix, having not seen the horrors brought about by blood supremacists, still believed in the whole gimmick of superior blood, whereas Draco had long abandoned the notion.

"Didn't you hate Ron Weasley, dad? Mum said you hated each other," piped up Scorpius, jamming a large piece of potato into his mouth.

"I didn't say hate," Astoria chided her son, offering an apologetic smile to her husband.

Nyssa sighed, "I don't care that Rose is a half-blood. She was very nice." She'd dealt with her grandmother's crazy blood supremacist thoughts for long enough now and hoped that her daddy would let go of it all soon too.

"That's right, sweetie," Lyra gave an encouraging smile to her daughter, eyeing her husband from the corner of her eye.

With Phoenix giving no comment, the subject was dropped and the two families resumed dinner with silence, until Nyssa bet Scorpius two chocolate frogs that she could beat him in a broom race. It had taken several promises of sweets from Astoria and Lyra to get the two children to forget the idea. Secretly, the two planned to conduct the race the next day anyway, though they agreed they'd have to do it far away from the house so that their mother's didn't catch on.


Second chapter!

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