~~~Professor Minerva McGonagall~~~

"Albus are the restraints really necessary? How dangerous can she really be at her age?" a tall sour faced older woman with an overpowering Scottish accent asked as she watched the girl child who was engaged in a conversation with two animals of the land, a red fox and a raven; both known for their cunning and pranks as well, one of which was the symbol of the smartest house at Hogwarts, the other was known throughout the world as a notorious trickster, in both the magical and muggle worlds. Minerva thought about what Albus had told her about the child, Christabelle he had said her name was, able to control her magic well enough to produce a noose wandlessly. A feat that most trained Aurors would have a problem with, and this child, who looked so small and frail at first glance, until you looked harder, then you saw a predators strength in her, the wiry muscles could easily be mistaken for no muscles at all, and the look of complete confidence when she talked to the animals, Minerva had seen that same look in her own eyes when first mastered her animagus transformation, she saw that same look of determination on this child's face, and in all honesty it intimidated her a little bit.

"Minnie, I have no doubt that you will be in any danger as long as she does not feel threatened by you, rather like those cats that you are so fond of yes?" Albus said with a healthy grin on his face, though Minerva thought that she detected a small hint of apprehension at releasing the child, but he would not be in the room at all so he was safe, Minerva on the other hand had not a clue what she was getting into. But if she could deal with an irate Severus Snape, then she could deal with a nine year old child who had tantrums, very magically powerful tantrums, but tantrums none-the-less.

So she raised her head gathered her Gryffindor courage, and opened the door, waving her wand at Christabelles' bed and countered the spell that Dumbledore had placed on her, then said, not allowing the child the opportunity to speak.

"Hello child, I am Professor McGonagall and I will be teaching you how to control your magic, until we find you a guardian, at which point I will no longer be instructing you. Now, sit up," she paused to let the child do as she was told, and surprisingly enough the child complied without a single word of protest. But then she remembered what Albus had told her about the child's past and it was no wonder to her that the child was so agreeable, and decided to do away with all that rubbish from the start. "I will have you know, that I will never beat you, that does not mean that you can get away with whatever you want to do though. If you ever want to get out of here, then I suggest that you do as I say, if you have any questions, ask them, I will not have you disrespecting me or any of the staff here, do you understand me girl?"

"Yes professor," was all the response that Minerva got out of the poor child, but that didn't stop her from doing what needed to be done.

"Very well, lets get started then. How did you first learn to use your magic?" Professor McGonagall asked while watching the raven preen itself.

And so for the next several hours they went over how Christabelle first used accidental magic to trap a fleeing rabbit, and how she remembered the feeling inside of her the next several times that it happened. Then how she forced that feeling again and again on days that she had enough food to not necessitate hunting, and she would concentrate on that feeling then cut a piece of wood with it until she could do it on command, then she explained her reasoning that just like any other muscle in the body if she used it regularly, it would grow stronger, and she would learn more different uses for it. She hadn't reached that stage yet, as it still took severe concentration to cut through a decimeter of oak wood, and a decimeter and a half of flesh in a slashing movement, or to cut one centimeter deep around a six decimeter tree trunk, or around sixty-five decimeters of flesh, without passing out, but coming very close to it.

~~~Four hours later~~

~Christabelle Ambrosius Pendragon~

Laying back in her hospital bed after the professor had left she started to shake her head, holding back tears, "Tristan, why is it that she was so afraid of me? What about me scares her so much? What have I ever done to make her afraid? I mean Dumbledore most likely told her about what happened in the alley, but that was an accident, I thought he was going to try to… I thought he was going to hurt me, so I defended myself. How else was I supposed to act?" the damn broke at some point in her tirade. "Did I make a mistake in coming back into the world? What about this new world that I know nothing about? What if I make a fool out of myself? What if I break some rule that I know nothing about? What am I going to do, guys?"

She was cut off at this point by a sharp peck to the head, when she looked up at Shadow, he simply looked at her and said, "Silly girl, you will learn. Two legs fear power, have power, people fear. Do not worry, prove yourself. Earn respect. Prove wrong. Learn control, not give into darkness, master light, tame the dark, people like. You find flock, give time."

Tristan who was curled up against her stomach, lifted his head, you will find what you are looking for, like the bird said, you just have to give it time. However, I suggest we get some sleep, I don't think that's the last time we will see the professor, so you should be rested.

Christabelle decided to listen to the animals and chose to start learning all that she could about this new world that she had just found not even two days ago. She fell asleep with dreams of people running in fear of her, and her crying because of their fear and misunderstanding. When she awoke in the morning, she remembered nothing of her dreams.

When she looked around her room she was surprised to find a young brunette sitting in one of the two chairs that accommodated the room. Upon seeing that Christabelle was awake, the brunette quickly introduced herself as Healer Tam, and told her that she was a mind healer. "What that means Christabelle, what a pretty name by the way, is that while other healers deal with messy cuts, and general ickyness, I deal with what goes on inside your head, so why don't we talk a little bit about you?"

And so she spent the day talking about the orphanage and everything that went on there, the beatings, the abuse, the seclusion, her ability to seemingly blend in with the darkness around her, the fondness for small dark places because they were safe from the other kids who refused to go there, or who couldn't fit. Her decision to leave, and what lead to it, the first two months of her stay in the woods, and how difficult they were and why. The first time that she met Tristan and why she decided to save him, her declaration of war against all hunters who entered her woods. The time that she saved Shadow from a pack of feral cats and nursed her back to health. Learning about her power and learning how to use it to survive. The two blondes that she watched that made her leave the woods forever, her journey into London, the encounter with Professor Dumbledore in the alley. Even her talk with Professor McGonagall was scrutinized intently by Hr. Tam, who like Professor McGonagall looked more and more concerned as the conversation continued and again, self pity and hatred started to cloud her mind, and bring tears to her eyes, and so mercifully Hr. Tam concluded their session for the day claiming to have things to do at home, but Christabelle knew, she just knew that it was to give her some time to recover for the next day of the exact same thing.

That night she dreamt of her life, all the pain and hurt that it involved, and how different she was from the other kids at the orphanage, they were carefree and happy most of the time, she on the other hand was subject to daily abuse and more-than-occasional rape, and it had hardened her, but she was still weak enough to cry, she still had a heart, she knew with every thing in her being that she was a better person then the Matron, and a braver kid then most would begin to suspect just by looking at her.

~*~*~*~ Four Days Later

In the morning she expected to see Healer Tam again, but was shocked to see the tall blonde woman with vivid green eyes whom she had observed the day that she left her home. "Hello," the beautiful blonde woman said in an ethereal voice that warmed Christabelles' heart, "my name is Elaine Nimue Lovegood, I have been told much about you in the last few days, but I doubt that you know much about me. So I will tell you about myself, if you will tell me, after all, the best storytellers are the one who has lived them, not those who have had the story told to them, do you not agree?"

Christabelle did not know why but she trusted this woman, she felt a goodness in the woman, perhaps that was why, looking back years later, she didn't even know why she trusted this woman, this stranger who had forced her from her home, who had made her seek others of her species. Maybe that's why, maybe it was because she had already attached some hefty emotion to the woman, she never thought about it for too long though.

Christabelle sat silent for well over ten minutes thinking about what to say, how to say it, when she looked at the woman who had convinced her to leave her den, and then she told the woman about everything, about how the other children never seemed to like her, about how the matron would beat her, and in the months before she left the orphanage about how she was thrown into the boys dorm and how they were told to "have fun with the little whore, she'll need the practice." She told Elaine about how the door swung open before she could run back up the stairs the night she left that place. She told her about how she could sense a persons inner balance, and described this feeling as goodness or bad things, she explained. Throughout her tale, she never took her eyes off of Tristan and was rhythmically petting him all throughout, she told this strange woman who had this aura of peace and serenity and lightheartedness like nothing that he had ever felt before every detail that she could remember of her first and second lives, little did she know that the third one was about the begin so soon.

Then came the biggest shocker of all for the independent child. "Christabelle, the reason that I'm here is to take you home with me. That is if you want too," Elaine said kindly. Her eyes shining for the fear of rejection, Christabelle nodded meekly.

An awkward silence filled the small white room until the tall raven croaked out, "What call you?" her sharp voice cutting through the silence like a lightning bolt in a forest.

Elaine thought for a moment, then said, "You may call me Mum if you like, or if you don't want to call me Mum, you could just call me by my name if you prefer, I have no preference." Elaine said in a semi-embarrassed tone, leaning back in her white chair.

Christabelle remained silent for another minute or so, then started to say meekly, "When are we leaving Mum? I don't like being here, its too clean, to small, I feel trapped, I want to go NOW!" she built up steam as she kept on talking, and just let loose. She immediately cringed and started to say very rapidly "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, didn't mean it, please don't beat me, please don't beat me," she muttered as she rocked back and forth on her bed.

Elaine stood up and walked over to the small child and slowly wrapped her arms around the child, giving her plenty of time to pull away if she wanted, but to Elaine's immense surprise the child melted into her arms, and sobbed for a good forty minutes before falling to sleep Elaine laid down in her new child's' bed. After all there was plenty of time to explain every thing later, and on that note, she settled in to the warm hospital bed, and fell asleep.


A/N sorry that it took me so long to get this chapter up, I have been dealing with a lot of stuff recently, including but not limited too by any means, starting collage, writers block, having a real life, trying to figure out how I want to get where I want to go with this story, as well as some family stuff, moving out of state, so hopefully the next chapter will be up soon. Also, as I am lazy, and want to get on with the action, and the meat of the story, I will be skipping ahead to the first year, the next chapter will be covering the time in between but only as a general overview.