Wednesday 1 September, 2010:
The late afternoon sun shone brightly, its rays streaming through the window and onto the girl who lay on her bed, reading A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot. She was not supposed to be reading right now; she needed to finish packing her trunk, because she would be leaving in just over an hour.
Not that she would be going far – just down to Hogsmeade station to join the other First Years, then coming back to the castle. Whatever house she was sorted into, her new room would only end up being a few hundred metres away from this one in the old Divination Tower.
The sole Divination teacher at Hogwarts for the past eleven years had been the centaur Firenze, after Sybill Trelawney, whose memoir had become a best-seller, had left her teaching post to pursue a fulltime career as an author. Thus, her old classroom and office had been vacant, and the ideal place for Remus Lupin, Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and Head of Gryffindor house, to live in and raise his young daughter.
Athena Valeriya Lupin was determined to finish this book before she officially became a Hogwarts student. It wouldn't be as impressive as reading it before the age of six, but as her father frequently reminded her, Athena hadn't spent her early childhood locked up in a house with only the company of murderous blood-supremacists.
That wasn't to say that Athena had experienced a completely ordinary childhood – or even that she was a remotely ordinary child. In fact, she was downright peculiar. She had been born with the ability to see Thestrals, and could actually have physical contact with ghosts. And there was also the idiosyncrasy of having been born fifteen months after her mother had died.
With a tiny, victorious smile, Athena finished reading the last page of her book and closed it triumphantly. Sitting up on her bed, she threw A History of Magic across the short distance to her open trunk, where it safely landed on top of her carelessly folded clothes. Looking around her small bedroom – which had once been part of the classroom, before her father had sectioned it off – she wondered what else to bring with her to her new dormitory, and what she could keep here.
Her eyes swept across The Beatles poster on her wall (which she had begged her father to buy when they'd visited a Muggle music shop in Edinburgh a couple of summers ago) and the calendar with pictures of Dragons (today's date had been vigorously marked), before her gaze fell on her bedside table. Upon it was a small clock, a box of tissues, her cream-coloured wallet, a miniature model of a Hippogriff, her new wand, and a framed photograph.
Athena shuffled closer to the bedside table, her eyes captured – as they always were – by the picture. She had been given it by her godmother, Maggie, who had found it when sorting through her old things six years ago. Unlike other photos of her mother, it had been developed the Muggle way, so its subject did not move, but it was Athena's favourite.
It had been taken, Maggie had told her, on Christmas day, 1995. Her mother sat on the back doorstep of Newt Scamander's house, her long hair loose, except the section that was gathered on top in a messy knot. She was wearing a royal blue jumper, and her head was turned so she was looking directly into the camera, with one eyebrow arched, and the corners of her lips slightly curved up. It was an expression of tolerant exasperation: not really understanding why someone was taking a photo of her, but not bothered enough to protest. A split-second in time which, her father said upon seeing it, had impeccably caught his wife – a woman Athena only knew through pictures, the stories of those who'd known her, letters and essays she had written; and a flicker of a memory of her whispering, "I love you, my darling", the skull behind the smiling face clearly visible, that had been etched into Athena's mind the day she was born.
(The last of these things had created a slightly awkward scene when her father had taken a three-year-old Athena with him to the York Art Gallery, and upon seeing a Danse Macabre painting of the Grim Reaper, she had pointed at it and excitedly squealed, "Mummy!", startling the other gallery visitors.)
Athena's existence was an enigma that, understandably, mystified most people. They wondered if her mother was truly dead; after all, there had never been a body, and she had disappeared without a trace before. Her father did little to quell these suspicions. It was a much more believable theory than the truth.
According to her father, a newborn Athena had appeared at dawn on the first day of August, 1999, in the house in Notting Hill he'd owned back then (he'd since sold it to Athena's godfather, Harry, who lived there now with his wife Eve and their two young children, Albus and little Lena). She had been wrapped in a black blanket, and he'd known the moment he laid eyes on her that she was his and Lena's daughter.
Athena mouthed the name as she picked up the photograph. Lena Lestrange. She had always thought it sounded like something from a storybook, perhaps one of those old Muggle novels her mother had loved to read. She examined the picture, as if hoping that on the thousandth time, she would discover something entirely new about the young woman who she thought was beautiful in an almost frightening way.
She had inherited her mother's eyes, as well as the prominent cheekbones, but had been burdened with her father's long nose. She also had his light brown hair, which was wavy and cut short to an inch below her chin. Like both her parents had been, she was tall for her age, and in a particularly awkward stage of growth where her limbs felt disproportionately long and unwieldy. Lena, on the other hand, had apparently always possessed a careless grace that was a trademark of the Black family, from whom Athena was descended.
She put the photograph back on the table and picked up the wand instead. It had been an eleventh birthday present from her mother's friend, Sârbu, who had made it specifically for her. It was precisely eleven inches long, and made of yew. Its core was a tail hair from a Thestral – something which both Sârbu and her godfather had told her was extraordinarily rare.
"Makes perfect sense, of course," Harry had said with a smile when she'd showed him. He was one of the few people who knew that Athena's mother was dead – because he was the one who had killed her – and had become Death – because he had seen and talked with her on the night she had returned to the world of the living.
The night Athena's parents had conceived her.
She wrinkled her nose. Her father had given her The Talk a year and a bit ago, and she really didn't want to think about him doing that. He was fifty now – practically ancient. Thankfully, a distraction arrived in the form of Tizzy the house-elf poking her head around the door.
"Miss Athena?" Her big blue eyes widened upon seeing the trunk still open and clearly not fully packed yet. She pushed the door open the whole way and put her hands on her tiny hips, scowling. "Still not packed? Mr Remus told Miss Athena–"
"I know, Tizzy," interrupted Athena, rolling her eyes. The elf had practically raised her while her father was busy teaching. "I'm getting there." She stood up and walked over to the trunk, half-heartedly reorganising its contents. "See?"
Tizzy pursed her lips. "Hmm. Mr Remus is back from the staff meeting in ten minutes. Miss Athena ought to be ready by then."
"Yeah, yeah, I will be."
Throwing her one more imperious look for good measure, Tizzy left. When she was out of sight, Athena stopped pretending to pack, and sighed. Her stomach was starting to feel slightly queasy.
She hadn't spoken to her father about how nervous she was. After all, most of the usual concerns of First Years didn't apply to her – she already knew the castle and its grounds better than most students ever would; she was already acquainted with the teachers, and got on reasonably well with all of them; she had already finished all the required reading for the year; and as her mother had been in Slytherin and her father in Gryffindor, she didn't really mind into which house she was sorted (although she really couldn't imagine herself in Hufflepuff). She was even liked by the school's resident poltergeist, Peeves.
But Athena still had one major concern. And that was the 'F' word.
Friends.
Having not gone to a primary school (her father had taught her reading, writing and maths in the afternoons after he finished teaching and on weekends, and as an avid reader, she was happy to investigate other topics like history and geography by herself), Athena hadn't been around many other children the same age as her. The only one she really knew was Victoire Weasley, whose parents were friends of both her father and godfather. Victoire was nine months younger than her – she would not be starting Hogwarts until next year – and was not very similar to Athena, despite their fathers' shared wolfish characteristics. Victoire was blonde and beautiful and bossy, an extremely sociable girl who was completely at ease being the centre of attention. Athena, on the other hand, preferred to find a quiet corner and remain unnoticed when she stumbled into social situations.
(Well, 'social' in the sense of living humans. She could happily converse with the ghosts of Hogwarts for hours, or talk to the house-elves in the kitchens about something she'd just learned in a book, or listen to the chattering of the Bowtruckles in the Forbidden Forest. The best companions of all were the Thestrals – they always seemed to understand what she said to them, and she could decipher their sounds and expressions with ease.)
But from tonight, Athena would spend the next seven years in the constant company of others kids, even sharing a bedroom with at least a few of them. And she knew, from observing afar while living in a school, that usually entailed an expectation of bonding with at least some of them. Of friendship. And that was making Athena extremely anxious, because she didn't have the slightest idea of how that worked.
What if her unique abilities were off-putting to other kids? What if they scared them? What if she was just too peculiar for anyone else to want her to be their friend?
Athena closed her eyes and clenched her fists as her breathing started becoming too quick. She was starting to panic, and that was bad. Her untamed magic had a tendency to blow up stuff when that happened.
Opening her eyes, her breathing still ragged, Athena moved over to her little, crammed bookshelf that was about one metre high and two feet wide. On top of it sat a cassette player that was much newer (although harder to find, as most Muggle stores didn't really sell them anymore) than the old one her mother had owned and which her father still used. Her hands shaking slightly, she took one of the mix-tapes out of the box next to it, and inserted it into the player. It was one her mother had made, and Athena immediately felt calmness settling over her as a familiar guitar strumming began.
"This time tomorrow, where will we be?
On a spaceship somewhere, sailing across an empty sea…"
Music was the only thing that worked to quell Athena's anxieties; it had been ever since she was very little. When her father had discovered this, it hadn't surprised him.
"It must be a subconscious association with your mother," he had theorised to her. "It makes you feel like she's there with you."
As Athena started to dance now, closing her eyes again, she could almost feel it: the dark-haired woman with the same eyes as her, taking her hands and twirling around the room with her.
"I don't know where I'm going, I don't want to see.
I feel the world below me looking up at me."
Her arms waved gently in the air. With her bare feet on tiptoe, she moved around in circles, her hips swaying to the rhythm of the song. She danced freely, unconcerned about how she looked, and with a serene smile on her face. She started to sing along.
"I'll leave the sun behind me and watch the clouds as they sadly pass me by.
I'm in perpetual motion and the world below doesn't matter much to me…
This time tomorrow, where will we be?
On a spaceship somewhere, sailing across an empty sea?
This time tomorrow, where will we be?
This time tomorrow, what will we see?
This time tomorrow…"
"Argh!" yelped Athena, her eyes flying open as she tripped over her still-open trunk. She was halfway to the ground when a pair of hands firmly gripped her sides and pulled her back upright. Steadying herself, she turned around to her see her father shaking his head, but smiling.
"Thanks," she mumbled to him, as he let her go. "How long were you watching?" she added, her cheeks pinkening.
"Just the final verse and chorus," replied Remus. After a pause, he told her, "You dance exactly like her."
Athena glanced over at the photograph on the bedside table. "But I bet she never fell flat on her face."
Remus chuckled softly. "There were a couple of near misses… but yes, she was generally pretty good on her feet, from all the years of duelling practice."
Lena had been a brilliant duellist, Athena knew. Actually, according to most of the people who'd known her, she'd been brilliant at most things. She'd even managed to make a friend as soon as she started school, despite a childhood that had been, by all accounts, incredibly troubled. And Athena couldn't help being a little envious of her.
"What's wrong?" asked Remus, and Athena realised he'd been watching her face closely.
As a reflex, she shot back, "Nothing."
He raised his eyebrows, clearly not buying it. "Athena–"
"I'm fine, Dad," she said, a little too loudly, and turned back to her trunk. "I really need to finish packing–"
"You may be a little better than average at hiding your feelings, sweetheart, but trust me, you've got nothing on your mother."
Athena whirled back around, and with sudden volatility, snapped, "Yeah, thanks for reminding me."
Remus stared at her. "I didn't mean…" He cocked his head. "Is that what's bothering you?" he asked slowly. "You're comparing yourself to her?"
"No," muttered Athena mutinously, looking away from him. Of course, he was absolutely right. More and more, she had lately been thinking about everything she knew about Lena and about herself, appraising the two lives, and was finding her own lacking in nearly every respect. She wasn't as pretty, or as clever, or as accomplished. And she certainly wasn't 'charismatic', a word she had heard used to describe her mother on more than one occasion.
"Athena," said Remus gently, reaching his hand out to cup her chin and make him face her again. "Nobody is expecting you to be just another version of her. I certainly wouldn't want that. All you ever have to be is yourself."
The words spilled out of her mouth before she could stop them: "But what if nobody likes me?" She immediately winced; the words sounded so childish, so petulant.
Remus blinked in surprise. "Why on Earth do you think people wouldn't?"
"Because I'm… I'm…" Athena struggled for the right words. "I'm boring. And I'm weird. And I don't know how... how…" To her mortification, she could feel herself tearing up. "I don't how to make people… make them like me."
"Well, that's nonsense," said her father firmly. "Plenty of people like you very much: your godparents, the rest of the staff, all the house-elves, and the ghosts, to name a few. Hell, even Peeves is nice to you, and he still refuses to call me anything other than 'Professor Loopy'. And you know very well you're not boring."
"The only things that are interesting about me are the things I get from Mum," argued Athena, hastily wiping her eyes before any tears could fall. "There isn't anything I've done on my own that's special – not like she did."
"And I'm bloody glad for it," was Remus' frank response. "Merlin, the things she'd done by eleven…" He sighed, running a hand through his grey hair. "All right, sit down."
Athena crossed her arms in pre-emptive sullenness, but did as he asked, sitting down next to him on her bed. Remus put an arm around her shoulders, and after a second, Athena uncrossed her arms and leant into him, resting her head against him.
"Do you remember," said her father, "what I told you about the Mirror of Erised?"
Uncertain where this was going, Athena glanced up at him and nodded. They'd spoken about it a couple of years ago, when she had wanted to know more about Matilda.
There was a small table in his bedroom, upon which sat several objects – some recognisable, others not so much. One of them was a glass shard that had always fascinated Athena, for in its reflection lived a girl about a year older than her, who she resembled greatly. The girl's name, Remus had told her, was Matilda. Apparently, this girl was a creation of Lena's, using the Mirror of Erised – a magical object that reflected a person's deepest desire. The rest of the Mirror had been destroyed a few weeks before her mother's death, and the shard containing Matilda was all that remained. They couldn't talk to each other, but whenever Athena looked at the reflection, Matilda would smile and wave at her, and Athena felt a strange kinship with the girl who lived in the glass.
"Well," continued Remus, "the first time your mother looked into the Mirror, what she saw made her so upset that she threw up."
Athena frowned, puzzled. "But you said that the Mirror showed a person their heart's deepest desire."
"Exactly. And what your mother wanted at that time, more than anything else, was for Lord Voldemort to be proud of her."
Shocked, Athena stared at her father. She had known that Voldemort, who her godfather had spent practically all his life fighting before finally killing him twelve years ago, had been Lena's teacher when she was a little girl. But she had never realised…
Remus smiled wryly at her surprise. "I did tell you her childhood was quite complicated. Anyway," he pressed on, dismissively waving the hand that wasn't around her shoulder, "we can talk about that whole issue another time. What I want you to understand now is that for most of her life, Lena didn't like herself. Don't get me wrong, she had a very high opinion of her own intelligence and abilities – an accurate opinion, of course. But beyond that, she loathed herself for a very long time."
Athena's gaze fell on the picture of her mother again, struggling to reconcile that Lena with the one her father was describing. She couldn't understand how this remarkable woman (for everybody told her Lena was remarkable) hadn't liked herself, when Athena would have given anything to be more like her.
Aloud, she commented, "You said 'most of her life'. Does that mean she stopped feeling like that at some point?"
"I don't think it ever completely went away," admitted Remus. "But I think by the end, she was almost at peace with who she was." He paused for a moment, also staring at the photograph, and Athena wondered if he was remembering the last time he saw her, the night he had learned she was Death. "In any case," he said eventually, looking back at her, "the thing I wanted to tell you is something I said to her about a month after we got married. By that time, she cared less about what Voldemort thought of her, and we were discussing what it was that she really wanted. I suggested that it was to look into the Mirror of Erised and see only herself, just as she was. And she agreed."
For a minute, Athena remained silent, deliberating over what her father meant by telling her this. "So," she said at last, "what you're saying is that what I should want, above all else, is to be happy with who I am?"
Remus smiled. "That's what everybody wants. The trick is to know that most of the time, you don't really have to change anything about yourself to achieve it." He shifted slightly on the bed so he was facing her. "As long as you treat people with kindness rather than cruelty, and don't look away when you see something unjust but stand up against it, you're going to be fine. If anybody still doesn't like you, it's not the end of the world, and it's not a problem that you have to fix. The friends that are worth having are the ones that can see every little piece of you, even the bits you don't like so much yourself, and still decide to hang around."
"Like James and Sirius?" asked Athena, thinking of the stories she'd been told about her father and the men who had been his best friends.
"Yes, just like them," said Remus softly, with a fond expression. Then he paused. "But if any of your new friends do say they want to become illegal Animagi, try to discourage them. It could wind you up in a lot of trouble." He stood up, brushing out the creases of his trouser-legs. "And just so you know, if I do ever catch you breaking curfew, or sneaking into Hogsmeade, or duelling in the corridors, I will put you in detention."
Athena gazed up at him innocently. "Oh, no, Dad – I wouldn't dream of ever breaking any of the rules."
His face became suspicious at once. "Is that so?"
"Of course." Then she smirked. "But if in Seventh Year, a new teacher arrives that fancies me, I would probably have to date him."
Remus sternly pointed at her – although the effect was somewhat spoiled by his blushing cheeks. "I did not… date your mother while she was my student!"
"Yeah," muttered Athena, going over to her trunk as she recalled something Maggie had once said to her, "but you wanted to."
"You do realise that starting from tonight, I can give you detention for saying things like that to me."
Looking at him over her shoulder, Athena grinned. "What are you going to put on the little cards that you guys keep as records – 'she reminded me of my own history of rule-breaking'?"
"You ever heard of not biting the hand that feeds you?"
"I don't know; have you ever heard that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones?"
Remus exhaled loudly, exasperated. "Just finish packing, all right? We need to get going soon if you're going to meet the other First Years at the station."
"I'm doing it," retorted Athena, kneeling down besides the trunk. But as he made to leave, she called out, "Dad?"
He stopped at the door, looking around at her. "Yes?"
Athena bit her lip. "Thanks for telling me," she mumbled. "About Mum, I mean."
He smiled at her briefly, but as he turned around and left, Athena was sure she'd glimpsed a flicker of pain on his face.
'Twelve years,' she thought, starting – finally – to properly pack the trunk, 'and it still hurts him to remember that she's gone. Even though he does know he is going to see her again.' She wondered if it was selfish of her to hope that would not be for a very, very long time.
The sun had set by the time they left the castle to walk down the torchlit path to Hogsmeade station. Athena's trunk had been left at the entrance of the old Divination Tower for the house-elves to move to whichever dormitory would be hers when she was sorted in less than two hours. Absentmindedly, she played with the blank tie around her neck as she pondered what colour it might become.
The Thestrals had not left the castle's grounds yet, as Hagrid was still attaching them to the coaches.
"All righ', Remus?" The old half-giant called out to them, putting a halter over one who Athena knew was called Dorchadas.
Her father raised a hand in greeting as Athena quickly made her way around to each Thestral to say hello. The dark, skeletal, winged horses eagerly returned the favour.
"You mus' be excited teh finally start classes," Hagrid said to her, smiling warmly. 'I 'spect you'll be ahead of 'em all, just like yeh mother."
Athena returned the smile as she hugged the oldest Thestral, Umbrius, around the neck. "Yeah, but I wish I didn't have to wait another two years until your class."
Hagrid chuckled. "Don' know what I'll 'ave left teh teach you then. 'Ow's yeh Uncle Rolf, anyway?"
"Good. He and Luna are in the Galapagos Islands at the moment."
They chatted for a minute before Remus reminded them they had to be getting a move on. Waving goodbye to Hagrid and the Thestrals, they set off again, out the school gates and down the path of Hogsmeade.
Athena's eyes drifted upwards to the clear night sky. "Full moon's in three weeks, isn't it?" she asked.
Remus nodded. "Mm-hm."
Athena smiled to herself. She always looked forward to full moons, and seeing Moony. They would sit together in the old Divination Tower, easily conversing despite the human-wolf language barrier. It was starting to concern her a little, however, how much the effort of transformation took its toll on her father these days. It made her less inclined to tease him about being old.
They reached the station a few minutes before the Hogwarts Express was due to arrive. Nodding at the stationmaster, Remus turned to face Athena. "How are you feeling?"
"Excited. Nervous. A bit hungry."
Remus nodded slowly. He was looking at her closely, and Athena got the sense he was studying her. Just as she opened her mouth to ask him if something was wrong, he suddenly said, "I've done all right, haven't I?"
Athena cocked her head, confused.
"Being your dad, I mean," he clarified. "Because I know that teaching has taken up a lot of my time, and if you felt I didn't spend enough time with you, I'd underst–"
"No," said Athena quickly, a little alarmed by the anxious, uncertain expression on his face. "Of course you've done all right – better than all right." She threw her arms around his middle, hugging him fiercely. "I love you, Dad."
She could feel the tension leave his body as he returned the hug. "Love you too," he murmured, and kissed the top of her head.
When they released each other, he was smiling at her. "You're going to do great, Athena," he told her, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Whatever house you're in, whichever subjects you like most, whether you become the most popular kid in the school or if you just make one good, life-long friend – I'll be proud of you. I already am."
Athena's heart swelled with a happiness which didn't go away, even as her father said goodbye and headed back up to the castle. Nor did it diminish from the nervousness the sound of the train pulling into the station brought with it.
This time tomorrow, where will we be?
She didn't know. Nobody every really knew what tomorrow would bring.
But Athena had a strong feeling that whatever happened, she was going to be okay.
The End.
