Chapter 1

A scrawny 11 year old girl -Nimue Moriarty- scrunched her face in disgust as she sifted through the bins of books at Gladwell's Second-hand shop for Lockhart's collected works. They had been an addendum to the booklist and her Maimeó had called them "useless trash". There was no need to spend on them as new books, not when the money she had might be needed to buy her school supplies next year as well. The rest of her supply list had been reviewed by her mother and Grandma when she had received her Hogwarts letter at the beginning of May.

"Well, if you're a Ravenclaw like both your parents it will be best just to get you the full book sets now." said her Maimeó.

"Some of these items will be easy to get second-hand," said her mother. Nimue could see her calculating how little she could spend so she could maintain her beauty routine to keep her nails painted (a foolish cost as they were chipped as she made potions for the apothecary) and her robes of decent quality. Her mother was a vain, willowy blond woman with a pinched expression that rarely varied. Despite her marriage to Nimue's father all those years ago, she still managed to exude an air of pureblood superiority.

Maimeó Moriarty was not a vain woman. She was plump and prone to wearing handmade clothes. Her face was filled with creases, including the crinkles around her bright blue eyes. Despite the lack of care for her appearance she was better off than the current Mrs. Moriarty, who did not make much as a single mother and a shopkeeper in Knockturn Alley (her side ventures paid better). Nimue loved visiting her Maimeós tidy little cottage despite the fact her Maimeó was quite the taskmistress when it came to her schoolwork. It was nice to breathe air not filled with the taint of dark magic and the city's filth.

"I'll bring her father's old school trunk and the salvageable books tomorrow. The textbooks don't really change over the years." said Maimeó.

"Bring Beorn's wand too, perhaps it will suit her" said Mother. "The potion making supplies will be easy enough for me to procure."

The next day Maimeó brought over her father's old school trunk.

"He bought a new one for his last year, it holds more books with the expansion charms," she explained.

"I cleaned out everything except the books, a telescope that looks like it's never been used and his old chess set. For most of the classes the textbooks don't change, so I've left in the full sets of The Standard Book of Spells with the Appendixes, Switch's Transfiguration Texts, the potions texts with the additional guides, and then you've got your History of Magic, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, Magical Theory, Hogwarts: A History, Numerology and Grammatica, Spellman's Syllabary and a few other reference texts. The DADA position is cursed, but the best texts I saw for it were the Jiggers set since they haven't said which one will be used this year."

Finally she held out a wand box. "This was your fathers. Give it a wave and see if it works."

Nimue eyed it with shrewd blue eyes. She picked it up and felt her red hair frizz out of its braid. She gave it a wave and promptly caused several things to explode. Her grandmother ducked and took the wand away from her.

"Ollivanders it is," said Maimeó, amused.

Ollivanders took well over an hour. Finally an Elm and Phoenix feather wand shot out purple sparks and felt right. Since she had caused quite a bit of destruction in his shop, he looked a bit relieved to charge her Maimeó 7 galleons for the wand.

"A tricky customer you were, ." he said, bowing them out of his shop.

Maimeó brought Nimue back into Knockturn Alley and checked her pocket watch in front of Mr. Mulpepper's Apothecary. "I need to get going, I'm meeting a friend for tea. Finish your math problems and then start the first two chapters of Magical Theory and A History of Magic. We'll use those books to help get your essay writing and penmanship polished off and then start on the practical texts."

"Goodbye Maimeó" Nimue said as her Maimeó made her way off to the Apparition point.

Nimue made her way into the shop and patiently waited for her mother to finish ringing up the customer. Her mother beckoned her to the counter. "Go up to the Teashop in the Alley and purchase a small box of cakes and biscuits and some Assam tea. We are going to have a visitor after dinner."

Nimue nodded and took the galleons pressed into her hand. She didn't mind heading back into Diagon Alley. Since she was by herself she pulled her cloak's hood up and walked with purpose- most people would leave you alone if you looked like you knew where you were going. Size didn't matter in the alley because size was not a guarantee of power.

Diagon Alley was bright in comparison to Knockturn Alley. It had a street wide enough to let in the sun and its clientele was much nicer. Nimue knew better than to take too much time, she would have to complete her maths and reading before dinner. Who knew how long her mother's guest would be over?

Her mother's guest turned out to be Cygnus Black, who was immaculately dressed and always seemed to have a slight air of malice about him. It was not Nimue's first encounter with the man, he was a regular guest. Why her mother had sent her for tea and cakes she couldn't understand, he always brought his own whiskey and was careful to never eat anything Mrs. Moriarty had made.

After exchanging their usual pleasantries Nimue's mother passed the Hogwarts letter off to Cygnus. He gripped her face and met her eyes.

"Someday you will be pretty enough that a wizard of good blood may overlook your unfortunate status. What do you say to that?" he said mockingly.

Nimue carefully thought out her answer. "I suppose I should make sure that my unfortunate blood status is worth overlooking- and I won't be relying on looks alone."

He let her go. "A wise answer." Cygnus turned back to her mother. "I think your daughter will be in Slytherin. I will help finance her education since my former daughter is disinclined to do her duty and her godfather cannot. We will work out an… arrangement in exchange for those services."

At that Nimue's mother shooed her off to her room. The door was locked from the outside and Nimue could tell a silencing charm had been placed. She settled onto her bed with Magical Theory and a Standard Book of Spells and decided to focus on the fact that the Standard Book of Spells repeated the information in Magical Theory in a condensed form rather than letting her mind wander to what sort of arrangement her mother was making with Cygnus Black. The arrangement could be for the brewing of illicit potions, but she rather suspected it was for something else. Instead she took out her wand and began practicing the lumos charm. It flickered out the first time she did it but held the second time. She concentrated on the feeling of being able to perform magic with her own wand. In the fall she would be going to Hogwarts, a school that was a castle. That thought gave her pause and she grabbed Hogwarts: A History. How was she going to stop from getting lost...

By the time she was digging through the used bookstore bins in Knockturn Alley on August 12th, the day the addendum to the booklist had gone out, Nimue had read through all of the first year texts (including Jigger's DADA textbook) and Hogwarts: A History, twice- once to read them through and practice spells, and the other time to to create notes and outlines. Her Maimeó, who did not believe in holidays from work, assigned her essays from these texts to make sure her penmanship and essays were up to date. Her Maimeó believed in good note-taking and the ability to draw on more than one source, so many of Nimue's days were spent combing through both her mother and her Maimeó's collections of books for additional resources, depending on the topic.

Her mother had a different way of preparing Nimue for Hogwarts. She spent many hours having her daughter identify and carefully label ingredients- and identify their quality- along with teaching her exact ingredient preparation and the basic first year through third year potions curriculum. She also taught her about the prominent families in the wizarding world and which ones tended to be more affiliated with the light or the dark.

"The Yaxley's are of course Sacred 28. I should not have married your father, but I did love him despite his faults- and his blood status. If he had been of the Sacred 28 he never would have been murdered over something as trivial as a debt, but it could not be helped. Know your families Nimue. For instance, the Weasley's might be pureblooded but they are blood traitors, and with seven children they are much worse off than we are. Their youngest daughter is off to Hogwarts this year, but she should be no friend of yours. It is better to be friends with your fellow half-bloods of good standing. And of course, you are not to associate with the muggleborns," she finished with a shudder.

Nimue had to bite back her retort that Maimeó was a muggleborn and she was quite a bit nicer than any pureblood she had ever met.

Nimue triumphantly fetched the last of the wretched Lockhart books out of the bin. She had browsed them at Flourish and Blotts earlier in the day to get an idea of the content and decided they were more like novels than textbooks. Thanks to Cygnus Black she had new robes and clothing for Hogwarts, but she was saving her money for books that weren't rubbish.