When Nashira's eyes cleared, she found herself in an entrance hall tiled with beautiful patterns. "Welcome home, Miss Nashira," Mildy said. A few seconds later, there was a cacophony of popping sounds, and four other house elves appeared in the room. All of them looked rather overcome.
"Young mistress!" cried one with vivid blue eyes. "Helsy was not thinking she would ever see you again! Helsy is so glad you are home!"
"Mildy is selfish, to not have called everyone else to see the young mistress," one said grumpily. "Kirry will go and fetch the elves from the other properties. They has been waiting as long as we has." He vanished with a loud pop.
The other three elves swarmed forward, seeming afraid to actually touch Nashira but wanting to be as close to her as possible. A few seconds later, another two elves popped in, and while they were introducing themselves, three more appeared. Kirry then reappeared with one last elf.
Several of the elves were weeping openly, and half of them were wringing their hands.
Nashira wanted to back away from all the confusion - so many people focused on her - but they were all so happy to see her that it seemed cruel to reject them. The kitten, having no such reservations, clawed its way up her shirt to sit on her shoulder and hiss fiercely at the strangers. She stroked it soothingly. "Shh, it's all right." She looked back up at the elves. "Um, hello. Please call me Nashira."
"Young mistress is so kind," cried one that Nashira thought had said her name was Gerty, "But it is not proper for elves to be referring to young mistress so informally!" The kitten dug its claws into her shoulder, and Nashira welcomed soothing it as a distraction from dealing with the elves.
"Mildy has agreed to call the young mistress Miss Nashira," Mildy said. "Mistress Yasmin would not have minded, Mildy does not think. Mistress Yasmin was kind."
Kirry shook his head. "Kirry will not. Kirry is a proper elf."
Mildy glared at him. "Mildy has worked for the Shafiqs longer than Kirry has, and will thank him to remember that. If Miss Nashira says it is right, then it is proper."
Kirry sniffed and turned up his nose. A younger-looking elf that Nashira thought had come in one of the later groups stuck her tongue out at him playfully. "Kirry doesn't know how to appreciate good things. Bessy will call Miss Nashira that if Miss Nashira wishes."
"Bessy," said Kirry, "does not understand proper behavior, because she is too young to be sensible and should still be in the nursery."
"Perhaps Kirry should be in retirement, if Kirry cannot accept orders from his mistress," Bessy retorted.
Mildy snapped her fingers and a thunderclap echoed through the room. Nashira winced as the kitten half fell off her shoulder and clawed its way back up to a secure perch, back arched and fur puffed out. "Bessy and Kirry will stop their arguing in front of Miss Nashira! They is making us all look bad in our first impression." She turned to Nashira. "Mildy is sorry, Miss Nashira. Bessy and Kirry is assigned to different houses to avoid this. Elves is usually more respectful than this to mistresses and masters." She shot a poisonous glare at Kirry, who sniffed again, but relented somewhat.
"Kirry is sorry, Young Mistress Nashira," he said grudgingly.
"Bessy is sorry too, Miss Nashira, even if it wasn't Bessy's fault," Bessy said primly, then winked at Nashira as soon as Mildy looked away. Nashira smiled at her. She liked Bessy already.
"Um, I wanted to see the photo albums," Nashira said uncertainly. "I don't know what my parents looked like."
Several of the elves gasped in horror. Bessy looked suddenly determined. "Bessy is being right back, Miss Nashira. Bessy is getting albums from the Black houses of Master Regulus." She looked at Mildy. "Is it being all right if Bessy invites the Black elves to come see Miss Nashira? They has been waiting almost as long as we has."
Mildy nodded. "That is only fair, if you is getting albums from Black houses, that Black elves gets to see Miss Nashira too." She turned to Nashira as Bessy disappeared with a pop. "If Miss Nashira will follow Mildy, Mildy will take her to the family parlor where the albums are, and the family tapestry."
"Tapestry?" Nashira asked, following Mildy up the stairs.
"Yes, Miss Nashira, with the family tree. The Black tapestry is having many names burned off of it, but the Shafiqs remember their blood even when they do not approve."
"Oh, like the family tree Lagrak made to confirm my identity," Nashira said.
Mildy nodded. "Very like, Miss Nashira. It shows all of the Shafiqs and their spouses and children. It traces down, not up like one made just for Miss Nashira." She stopped in front of a door made of warm-looking wood, with a subtle swirling pattern carved into it. "This is being the family parlor, Miss Nashira." She opened the door and gestured for Nashira to precede her inside.
Nashira stepped hesitantly through the door and looked around. The walls were draped in rich teal fabric, and the furniture was beautifully crafted of the same wood as the door. There was a crackling fire burning in the fireplace, even though it was summer. Somehow it didn't make the room uncomfortably warm, just welcoming and cozy. There was a plush couch in a vivid jewel tone purple in front of the fireplace, and next to it was a bookshelf full of leather-bound books with dates and names stamped on the spines in elegant gold lettering. Some of them were in a script Nashira couldn't read, but was pretty sure was Arabic.
Mildy hurried over to the bookshelf and started pulling out albums. Some of them were labeled 'Amani Halima', some 'Yasmin Amani', and one said 'Nashira Yasmin'. That one was the slimmest, and the leather looked newer. Mildy floated them all over to the intricately designed openwork iron coffee table in front of Nashira. "Here is being the albums, Miss Nashira. The pictures is all being labeled."
Nashira sat down on the couch, then reached out and picked up the first dated one with her mother's name and opened it.
She was confronted with picture after picture of a laughing toddler, running in and out of frame, waving a stick imperiously, hugging a stuffed dragon, hands full of dirt and laughing.
"Mildy, the pictures are moving," she said uncertainly.
"Of course, Miss Nashira. Are muggle pictures not moving?"
Nashira shook her head. "Not on paper."
Mildy shrugged. "All wizarding pictures are moving."
Nashira stared at the pictures of the little girl with familiar eyes. She could hardly bear to turn the page away from them, but if she didn't she would never see the others. She turned the page. Here, a toddler with curling black hair frowned seriously at the pages of a book she held upside-down. Here, she chased after the stuffed dragon, which was being levitated by a kind-looking man with a full beard and twinkling eyes. Here, a woman with a thick black braid down past her hips held the toddler up and spun her through the air.
The pages blurred in front of her as Nashira turned them, and she realized that she was crying. This was her mother, her grandfather, her grandmother, her family. They were gone now, but they had existed, and they had left things behind for her to know them by.
She was distracted from her thoughts by the kitten bracing itself against her neck to lick her cheek comfortingly. It made her smile despite herself, even though the kitten's tongue was very rough and it hurt a little. She really needed to find a name for it.
She finished looking through that album, absently petting the kitten with her free hand, seeing the toddler grow up into a taller child more steady on her feet, with hair falling past her shoulders. She had just opened the next when Bessy appeared in the room with a pop, immediately followed by a cavalcade of other pops from a legion of new house elves. The Black family elves, presumably. The kitten puffed up intimidatingly again and its claws dug into her much-abused shoulder.
Nashira looked up at them nervously. "Um, hello."
"Young mistress is truly here!" cried one of the older-looking elves, looking exulted. "Her blood is true! Our wait is over!"
"Please call me Nashira," she said uncomfortably.
"Of course, Mademoiselle Nashira," said a younger elf with deep green eyes and a slight accent. "Do not mind Kreacher. He was devoted to your father."
"You knew my father?"
Kreacher nodded vigorously. "Master Regulus was a true son of the house of Black. Mistress Walburga was proud of him - not like his blood traitor brother," he added with a snarl.
The younger elf rolled her eyes tolerantly. "Maître Regulus was a good young man, and we have missed our heir these long years. Seigneur Potter tried to take possession of the estate, as he was Maître Sirius's heir, but the wards knew, and we knew, that he was not the true heir to the family, even if he was Maîtresse Dorea's grandson. Maître Sirius was not Maître Regulus's heir, you were, and Maître Regulus was the last true heir to the house of Black."
Kreacher was staring at her hands, and Nashira shifted the album uncomfortably. His eyes sharpened. "Kreacher must see the Heir ring."
Nashira bit her lip nervously - Kreacher was very intense - but she held out her right hand, with the two heir rings on it.
Kreacher reached out his hand and ran a long bony finger over the crest of the house of Black. "The wards are happy. The family survives. Your blood is pure, young mistress."
To Nashira's great relief, Bessy hurried over and pulled Kreacher back. "Give Miss Nashira her space, Kreacher. Look at her, she isn't being comfortable being crowded."
Kreacher looked up at Nashira with filmy eyes and nodded. "Of course. We are beneath the young mistress, it is not being proper for us to bother her." He vanished with a pop.
The younger Black elf sighed in relief. "Thank goodness. I am Verdant, Mademoiselle Nashira. I am one of the elves assigned to Bijou, the Black family property in France."
"It's nice to meet you," Nashira said.
Verdant smiled. "You are very kind, Mademoiselle Nashira. But we have the album, here. Thankfully someone took it from Kreacher." She held out a book bound in green leather with silver printing spelling out 'Regulus Arcturus Black 1961-1979' on the cover. Nashira reached out and took it reverently. It felt colder than the Shafiq albums, but she pushed aside her mother's album and opened her father's regardless.
The first page showed a squirming black-haired infant in a christening gown, with a yellowing article cut from a newspaper of a birth announcement pinned to the opposite page.
The page after that showed a solemn toddler on the lap of a woman with a severe face and steel-grey hair. A man with hard eyes stood behind her, with a warning hand on the shoulder of an older child who shifted rebelliously. The labels at the bottom of the page indicated that this was Regulus's brother Sirius, who Verdant had mentioned. He would have been her uncle, but if someone had been his heir, then he was dead too.
She flipped forward. All of the pictures in this album were formal portraits, stiff and composed, much less friendly than the casual everyday pictures of her mother as a child. The kitten seemed to be bored as well, and ventured off of her shoulder, climbing along the back of the couch to sniff everything.
She paused halfway in, on a picture of Regulus standing proud in new school robes that looked just like the ones she had bought today, holding what must have been a brand new wand. Robes - she hadn't gone back to pick up her robes!
"Mildy," she said urgently, "We never went back to Madam Malkin's! I forgot to get my robes!"
Mildy turned and looked at the clock. "It is not being terribly late, Miss Nashira. They will still be open. Mildy will be going to pick them up, and Bessy will help Miss Nashira to find a room to put her trunk and things in."
Bessy hurried forward. "Bessy can be bringing the albums along with us, Miss Nashira, so you can look at them again later."
Nashira shook her head. "I think I'd like to keep looking at them here, when I do. This is a lovely room."
"Of course, Miss Nashira. Bessy will show you to the bedrooms."
Nashira reached over to the end of the couched and scooped up the kitten. She looked around. "Um, where is my trunk?"
"Mildy was leaving it in the entrance hall, Miss Nashira, to wait for you to pick a room. Bessy will bring it to you when you have picked one."
Nashira nodded. "All right. Um, lead the way?" She felt awkward ignoring all of the Black elves, but they seemed to realize that the time for meeting her was over, and as she followed Bessy out of the room, she heard the popping sounds of them disappearing behind her, presumably back to all of the other houses she owned.
It was still a little dizzying to think that she owned all these things. She felt better if she thought of them as belonging to her families, and she was just allowed to use them. She didn't need nine houses and billions of pounds and a dozen house elves, she was just one girl!
Both families must have been huge, to have used so many houses of such size. It was a little scary to think that she was all that was left. Two huge families, old families, and it all came down to her.
Nashira looked up at the arching ceiling of the hallway as she walked and felt very small. She wasn't sure there was enough of her to carry all that history. She was only eleven.
There was a sharp pain in her wrist, and she looked down to see the kitten had bitten her. She giggled a little wetly. It seemed the kitten wouldn't let her get wrapped up in melancholy. "Thank you," she told it. "I'll find you a wonderful name, I promise. Something that shows that you're a part of the family with me. Then there'll be two of us."
Bessy cleared her throat. "This is being the hall with the bedrooms, Miss Nashira." She nodded at the double doors at the end of the hall. "That is being the Master bedroom suite, where Mistress Amani and Master Jabir lived. Mistress Yasmin would have moved into it, had she lived." She gave Nashira a shrewd look. "Miss Nashira is the Heir and only remaining member of the family, and has every right to use it, but Bessy thinks Miss Nashira might prefer something a little smaller for now."
Nashira nodded, her eyes wide. A suite? "I don't even have my own bedroom at the Home," she said helplessly.
"The Home?" Bessy asked. "Where has Miss Nashira been living all these years?"
"It's an orphanage. A, um, muggle one, I guess. Saint Anne's Home for Girls. I was a foundling, so."
Bessy looked horrified. "Miss Nashira has been living with muggles and has not even had her own room for eleven years, when Miss Nashira has nine houses and over a dozen house elves she is rightful heir to? Bessy would not have had the raising of Miss Nashira, Gerty was the nursery elf, but Miss Nashira should have been home!"
Nashira shook her head helplessly. "I had no idea, Bessy. I didn't even know my parents' names until today."
Bessy's jaw firmed. "Miss Nashira will follow Bessy now, and Bessy will show her Mistress Yasmin's bedroom, so she can see where her mother lived."
Nashira's eyes widened. "It's- her things are still there?"
"Of course, Miss Nashira. She took some of them to the flat on Grove Lane, but her childhood things are all still here. No one would have cleared out her room for someone else to use." She paused. "Mistress Amani and Master Jabir's things were moved out of the Master suite and into storage, but that is different. The Master suite is special. It was being prepared for Mistress Yasmin or Miss Nashira to move into it."
Bessy led the way down the hall to a room with a silver plate on the door, much like the one on the trunk, only this one was polished and clear, the letters spelling out 'Yasmin Amani Shafiq' easy to read. This one also had more of the letters Nashira thought were Arabic underneath it. She supposed that probably was her mother's name as well.
Before she could consider the nameplate any longer, Bessy pushed open the door, and Nashira caught her breath. She had lost track of where in the house she was in relation to the front door or any of the outer walls - it was so big, it was hard to keep track - but they had evidently reached an outer wall, because opposite the door was a huge bay window with a windowseat piled with cushions. Vines trailed down around the edges of the windowpanes, kept neatly back from obscuring the view but still allowed to thrive.
The cushions were a haphazard assortment in a dozen or more styles and colors, in different shapes and fabrics. Most of them looked like normal pillows, as Nashira thought of such, with invisible stitching and everything symmetrical, but a few of them were lopsided with bright threads peeking out of the seams. Nashira reached out her hand to touch one, having walked across the room without realizing it.
Bessy spoke up behind her. "Mistress Yasmin insisted on sewing all of the cushions herself. It took her some time to get the hang of the sewing charms. Gerty was scandalized, but Mistress Amani was quite firm that Mistress Yasmin be allowed to learn to do things herself if she wishes, even if an elf could do them for her more quickly."
Nashira ran her fingers over the cushion. There was no dust on it, and it wasn't faded with age - it seemed the house elves took perfect care of her mother's room, preserving it just as she left it. Her mother had touched this, had made this.
The kitten miaoued at her imperiously and leapt off of her other arm and into the windowseat. The cushion it landed on shifted, and it was buried in pillows with a surprised squeak. Nashira smiled and dug it out. The reverent spell was broken, and she could see this as just a room now. A special one, but not a shrine.
She turned to the right, away from the window, to see that the entire wall was covered in bookcases. Her eyes widened. "I guess she didn't leave all of her books in the trunk for me," she whispered.
"Oh, the trunk!" Bessy cried. "Bessy will be right back with it, and will bring it with us until Miss Nashira picks a room."
Nashira nodded absently and stepped forward, staring at the books. There were so many, and nearly all of them she'd never heard of before. Some of them looked slightly familiar, like perhaps she'd seen them on the shelves at Flourish and Blott's, but she couldn't swear to it.
Some of them were bound in leather, some in cloth, and some of them were ordinary-looking paperbacks. Some of the paperbacks looked like things she'd seen at the library. On one shelf near the windowseat, the books looked the most worn. The paperbacks had cracked spines, and and the cloth-bound hardbacks were faded, with missing threads.
Nashira ran her fingers over the spines reverently and picked up one with a spine so cracked it was no longer readable. The worn cover proclaimed that it was The Finn Family Moonmintroll, by Tove Jansson. She blinked hard, her eyes burning. This was one of her favorite books, she had lost track of how many times she'd checked it out of the library before she finally bought her own copy - and it appeared it had been one of her mother's favorites as well.
"Hello, mum," she whispered. "I didn't get to know you, but we still grew up the same."
She sniffled, her eyes filling, and dropped blindly onto the windowseat. The kitten climbed into her lap and up her shirt to lick her cheek again, and she petted it with the hand that wasn't holding the book. It started purring, a strong rumbling like rocks in a pepper grinder, and she buried her face in its fur.
"I have a family," she whispered to the kitten. "I have a home. I belong. I'm not strange, I'm like my mother. I had a mother, and I'm like she was. We loved the same books. She gave me her name. I belong."
The kitten twisted around and licked her eyelid, and Nashira giggled.
There was a cough from the door, and she turned to see Bessy standing there with the trunk, looking uncertain. "I is being sorry to disturb you, Miss Nashira, but Mildy is being back with your robes, and she is wanting to know whether you've picked a room."
Nashira looked out the window into a courtyard with a fountain and a huge bed of jasmine flowers. She smiled. "If it's all right, Bessy, I think I'll stay here. My mother and I seem to have liked many of the same things."
"Of course, Miss Nashira," Bessy said. "This is being the Heir's room, it would properly be yours anyway, but Bessy was not sure if Miss Nashira would want to stay in Mistress Yasmin's room or not."
Nashira smiled down at the mismatched cushions all around her. "I like it. It makes me feel like I know her better." The kitten miaoued loudly in agreement.
Bessy nodded and gestured with one hand. The dragonhide trunk floated over to land at the foot of the bed. Nashira hadn't paid attention to that half of the room before, so she walked over to look at the bed. It was huge, bigger than any bed she'd ever seen, easily four times the size of her little bed at the Home, if not more. It had heavy purple velvet curtains tied back with silver ropes, and it was covered in a patchwork quilt made of as joyfully mismatched a selection of fabrics as the cushions.
Nashira ran her hand over the quilt. It was worn and soft, but all of the seams were strong and the colors were still bright. Her mother had clearly loved colors. She sat down on the edge of the bed experimentally and sank down into it with a squeak of surprise, tipping over backwards. She hadn't realized a bed could be so soft. Her bed at the Home was thin and hard, with springs poking up uncomfortably. This bed felt like a cloud.
Lying on her back in the bed, she could see up into the underside of the canopy above her, and she gasped. It was covered in flowers in dozens of colors. It didn't look like paint or embroidery - it was glowing. It must be some kind of magic. And it was beautiful. Nashira stared up into the flowers, hugging the kitten. This room felt like home. Like she was meant to be here, and she'd just been waiting all her life to find it.
Blinking hard, she sat up and walked around the end of the bed and the trunk to explore the other side of the room. There was a huge wardrobe and a chest of drawers as tall as she was, in a rich wood that matched a vanity and mirror next to them. The vanity had a beautiful set of brushes and combs with silver handles resting on it, and an assortment of bottles of perfume.
Next to the vanity was a doorway with a curtain of colorful glass beads blocking it off. Nashira pushed through it, smiling at the soft tinkling sounds the beads made against each other, and discovered a huge bathroom. There was a long counter with a copper bowl set on top of it, with taps above it that must mean it was a sink. The floor was beautifully painted tiles that were warm under her feet. There was a toilet in a nook in the corner, and a shower so big she could spread her arms out as far as she could and still not touch the sides.
The bathtub was practically a swimming pool. It was set into the floor, and made of shining hammered copper like the sink, but enormous. It had a dozen taps around the edge, and an assortment of glass bottles sitting nearby. Nashira noted with relief that there were steps worked into the side - she didn't think she'd be able to climb out of it once she got in, otherwise, and how ridiculous would she feel if she had to call a house elf to help her get out of the bathtub?
The bathroom was nice, and she'd look more closely at all of the bottles of things later, but the main room was much more interesting.
Nashira pushed back through the bead curtain, and caught sight of an elaborately worked brass clock on the opposite wall. She gasped. "It's six o'clock! I've got to get back to the Home!"
Mildy turned away from the wardrobe, where she was hanging up the robes, and looked at Nashira in confusion. "Why would Miss Nashira need to go back somewhere else? Miss Nashira lives here."
Nashira shook her head. "I can't just disappear, Mildy! They'll call the police, and I'd be a missing person and I'd never be able to show my face in the muggle world again, and I still need to buy things there, and-" The kitten interrupted her by miaouing loudly and biting her finger.
Bessy stepped forward. "You don't want to go back forever, right Miss Nashira?"
"No, of course not. I love this room, I want to live here, in the home my family lived in. I just can't stay here forever right now. Mildy, if you take me back to Gringotts tomorrow, I can ask them if they know how I can deal with making sure I'm not a missing person in the muggle world, or if they know anyone who can help. But I have to go back to the Home to sleep tonight, I really do, even if I wish I could sleep in this amazing bed instead." She bit her lip. "I'm going to be late for dinner again if I don't get back soon, and Miss Brenna will worry. They give me a lot of slack, letting me go to the library all day, but they could get into a lot of trouble if I disappeared when I was off by myself. They don't deserve that, they try really hard to take care of us, even if there are a lot more orphans than there are people to watch us."
Mildy sighed. "Very well, Miss Nashira. You is calling Mildy tomorrow, and Mildy is taking you to Gringotts, and clever goblins is helping you find out how to not have to live somewhere you is not even having your own bedroom. It's shameful, that our heir has been living in such conditions."
Nashira looked down at the kitten. "She'll have to stay here, I can't possibly take her back to the Home." She reached into her purse and fished out the package from Magical Menagerie and dropped it onto the bed. "You can make sure she has food and somewhere to go to the bathroom, can't you Mildy? I'm sorry, kitten," she added. "I haven't even found your name yet. I promise I will tomorrow."
Mildy sighed, sounding long-suffering, and Bessy stepped forward. "Bessy will be taking care of Miss Nashira's kitten while Mildy is taking Miss Nashira back to the orphanage for the night." She shot a sideways glance at Mildy. "Bessy will also see if she can be transferred to Villa Shafiq to help Miss Nashira."
Mildy shook her head. "No, it is not being fair if only some Shafiq elves is getting to serve Miss Nashira. We is having to rotate through the house where Miss Nashira is, so everyone gets a chance. Bessy will get her turn with everyone else."
"And Mildy will always be here?" Bessy asked, sounding affronted. "This is not even Mildy's assigned home!"
Mildy sighed. "Mildy will rotate too."
Nashira's eyes widened. "Please, can I have at least one or the other of you here no matter what? I feel more comfortable with the two of you than the other elves." She bit her lip, then added, "Especially Kirry. Please don't leave me alone with Kirry."
"Bessy is promising not to leave Miss Nashira alone with Kirry!" Bessy declared.
"Mildy will be making sure she is always here when Kirry is," Mildy interjected. "Bessy can be being here when Kirry is not. It is shameful, how Bessy and Kirry fight, and not fit to be in front of Miss Nashira."
Bessy frowned, but nodded. When Mildy turned away from her and back to Nashira, Bessy grinned and winked. Nashira smiled back. She was glad Bessy was on her side.
"So you'll take me back to the Home now?" Nashira asked Mildy.
Mildy nodded. "As Miss Nashira insists." She held her hand out for Nashira to take.
Nashira put her hand in Mildy's, then paused. "How will you find it? Lagrak took me to Gringotts, you've never been there."
"Now that Miss Nashira has been accepted by the wards and bonds, elves is being able to feel where she is, and where she has been. Mildy can feel where Miss Nashira has spent most of her time. There is being two places, one a little stronger than the other."
Nashira blinked in confusion. "I suppose one of them is the library. The Home is probably the stronger one, since I spend more time there? Since I'm not at the library all day during the school year."
Mildy nodded. "Mildy will take Miss Nashira there."
"Wait!" Nashira cried. "Are you just going to pop us into the middle of the building, with all the people, I mean muggles, around? They'd notice! I need to be out on the street so I can go inside."
Mildy looked affronted. "Of course, Miss Nashira. Mildy would never apparate somewhere where muggles could be seeing her."
"Sorry, Mildy, I didn't know."
Mildy relented and smiled at her. "Miss Nashira is being too kind."
There was a twisting sensation, and Nashira's new bedroom, her mother's bedroom, disappeared. After a long moment, it was replaced by a slightly grubby street. Nashira looked around and groaned. "We're outside the library."
Mildy looked surprised. "This is being the place that Miss Nashira considered the most her home."
"I suppose I do. Did," she said quietly. "The Home is just somewhere to sleep and eat. Books are a lot more like home than girls who try and trip me when I'm carrying food."
Mildy looked horrified. "Mildy cannot leave Miss Nashira with people who hurt her!"
Nashira kicked herself internally. "No, Mildy, they don't! They haven't bothered me in ages, because their milk kept tipping over into their laps, or they'd get static shocked, or their shoelaces would come untied and they'd trip as soon as they got up. They decided it wasn't worth it." She paused. "Is that magic, that that happened?"
"Of course, Miss Nashira. That is being accidental magic, which children do before they get a wand and go to school."
"Please, Mildy, I have to go back to the Home. If you won't take me there, I'll walk and be late for dinner."
Mildy sighed. "Only tonight, Miss Nashira. Mildy will not accept it a day longer. It is being awful, how Miss Nashira has been having to live, while she has houses and houses and house elves waiting for her."
"I promise, Mildy, we'll go to Gringotts tomorrow and I'll ask Lagrak what to do. I'm sure he'll have some idea, or be able to tell me who would know."
Mildy's mouth was set in a sour line, but she snapped her fingers, and the street disappeared with a twisting feeling again. The world reappeared around them in the form of an alley next to a rubbish bin. Nashira stepped out of it and looked up and down the street, then sighed in relief. "The Home is just up the street. I promise, Mildy, I'll call you tomorrow just as soon as I get away from people."
Mildy nodded unhappily, and watched Nashira walk all the way to the gates of the Home before disappearing with a pop.
Nashira hurried up the long driveway. She was late for dinner, the second day in a row. The purse jingled as she broke into a half-run, and she looked down at it in distress. She couldn't let anyone see that. She yanked it off and stuffed it into her backpack and zipped it back up, then ran in to the dormitory and dropped it on her bed and scurried off to the dining hall.
It wasn't Miss Brenna at the door today, it was Mrs. Brown, and she glared disapprovingly at Nashira when she pushed open the door.
"What kind of time do you call this, Miss Black?"
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Brown, I lost track of time-"
"At the library, of course you did." She frowned. "You are allowed privileges, Miss Black, but you must earn them. If you cannot return home in a timely manner, you will not be allowed out unescorted."
Nashira's eyes widened. "It won't happen again, I promise!"
Mrs. Brown sniffed disapprovingly. "See that it doesn't." She turned away to stare at a group of girls giggling at the nearest table.
Nashira hurried to grab a tray and plate and get some food. There weren't any potatoes left, so she just got a large scoop each of creamed spinach and baked beans and a sad square of slightly floppy toast to carry back to the table with her glass of milk. She demolished the food in short order, thinking wistfully of palak paneer in Diagon Alley.
When she finished, she returned her tray and plate, then slipped off to bed. It was early, but it had been a very long day.