Panic raced through her before she had even opened her eyes. Water was compressing her body from every side, strangely warm and constricting her movements.

Where am I?

Opening her eyes and mouth she tried to scream, only for her lungs to fill with water. Her body tried to cough up the water immediately and her arms convulsed violently in desperation to grab a hold of anything. Her heart was pounding in her chest and an ominous drum was beating around her.

What is happening?

The thoughts raced through her head as she pushed out her limbs to make the small space bigger. Her hands and feet contacted a hard surface, but it wouldn't move. She pressed her mouth shut, doing her best to press against the wall trapping her in the liquid, but to no avail.

Let me out!

She tried to open her eyes, only to remember she had already opened them. Darkness was the only thing present around her. No light, no star, no stones or mountains. In anguish she tried to push her body outward, to stretch and break the wall, but again nothing happened.

She was trapped. Her ears were ringing and the walls were closing in on her. She hadn't cried in a long time, but it was proving to be difficult to keep the tears of frustration out of her eyes. Her lungs cried for air as her mind and body weakened, her eyes closing slowly. With her last efforts she tried to push against the surface, only for her consciousness to slip away again.

Each and every time she awoke she was present in the small space, doing her best not to breath in the water.

The darkness didn't change, nor did the repetitive drum in the background. The drum eventually became the only thing she looked forward to, the only thing standing between her and insanity.

Days must have past, weeks, for her to keep coming back to consciousness and to lose it again, fighting with her mind to keep her sane. In desperation she went over everything she could think of; the sister she barely remembered, the mother she had loved and hated, the years spent alone, and the things the military had taught her. One time she gave up and breathed in as much water as she could, hoping this would put an end to her suffering. She lost consciousness and awoke again, in the same situation and in the same space.

Badum…. Badum….

Staring into nothing she tried to remember if she had her eyes open or not. Blinking she determined they had been open.

Badum…. Badum….

Extending her foot again it kicked against the wall. Still unmoving.

Badum…. Badum….

What if this was just forever? What if this was her punishment, her punishment for not touching the light?

Badum…. Badum….

Well fuck that person, she thought, her mind spinning. She won. She had won.

Her eyelids were starting to lose their power and they dragged down over her eyes.

Badum…. Badum….

Her last attempt at punching the wall resulted in nothing and the darkness took her mind with it.

Light shone through the curtains on her face. Groaning she tried to press her face into her pillow, smelling the scent of her bed and clung to the feeling of her dream, which was now slowly being pulled out of her mind.

She was so warm and comfortable.

Not moving she tried to lose herself once more into the deepest of her sleep. This comfort was the only thing she wanted, it was the only thing on her mind right now. She would never want anything else but to sleep in this moment. A light, cold breeze made its way from the open window to her face and she breathed in the fresh air, her body protected by the covers.

Breathed?

As if every nerve in her body was suddenly supplied with its own bucket of adrenaline she shot up to her feet, kicking the blanket of her, not caring about her comfort anymore. She stood on top of her bed. Her bed in her old room, the room from her youth. Thoughts failed to form as she took in her surroundings.

Her breathing was erratic, her lungs taking in every single air molecule they could find. Her eyes flickered through the room, trying to find anything out of place. The wallpaper on the walls was green and fading. Her bed was pressed against the wall, another bed against the other wall, a small closet in the corner and a desk in front of the window.

This was her home. She was home.

It had all been a dream. Everything had been a dream.

Tears gathered in her eyes as her legs gave out underneath her and she collapsed on her bed.

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It was the only thought repeating itself in her mind. She could do it again. It had been nothing but a dream, all the deaths and all the suffering. She was alive, in her home, and she would do better now. She would be better now.

Her eyes shot to the bed in front of hers.

Her sister. Her little sister was here.

Before she even registered it, she was at the door, throwing it open, not even noticing it slamming against the wall. Where was she? Where was her sister?

Running to the living room her heart and body were weightless, her movements unencumbered and so familiar. Her body was smaller too, just like she remembered. Her feet pounded on the floor as she busted through the door connecting the hallway to the living room. The living room was such a familiar sight she couldn't help but stop to take it all in. They had never been the well off, but they had just enough. A worn couch against the wall, a tv on the opposite side, and small dining table in the connecting kitchen surrounded by three chairs. One bookcase was present, filled with trinkets and old children's books their mother used to read to them. The smell of old cigarettes and fumes from the outside made it to her nose, but it didn't bother her. This is what home smelled like.

Her eyes focused on the only other living being in the room.

Mom, a small voice in her mind whispered, mom you're alive.

Her mother had been a tall, thin woman, with long blond hair braided over her shoulder. She herself had inherited the height, but not her thin stature. Instead she had always stood tall and strong, something which she had used to stand up against the neighbourhood children when they picked on her small and thin sister.

Her eyes moved over her mother, who sat at the kitchen table, light shining through the window behind her and illuminating her figure. She raised her hand to her face, tracing the scar that went horizontal over her nose. The only scar on her face.

She was really back.

Then she took in what her mother was doing.

Long elegant fingers were handling a pile of cash, bills laid out in the table in front of her.

The scene looked eerie familiar.

Slowly her relief started to come down and she took in the rest of the room. The needles on the floor in front of the couch, the smell of vomit from the yellow patch next to the garbage can, and two small plastic bags, a fresh needle, lighter, belt and a spoon all in front of the money on the table.

Realisation set in. She had been here before.

"Mom," she whispered, her heart was being dragged down in her chest. "Mom."

Her voice wouldn't go any louder, her feet nailed to the floor, and her arms like lead hanging by her side. It was only by the silence in the room that her mother looked up from the table at her voice. Big eyes took her in and smiled, one tooth missing from her front of her mouth.

"Amazing right!" Her mother spoke the words that had haunted her for years. "They didn't want you because of your scar, but I think they will be very nice to her!"

Shock filled her body and her surroundings started to fall away, her eyes laser focused on the woman she called her mother. Her body felt like a stranger and her tongue felt paralysed. She tried to remember how she was supposed to form words, thinking first and then saying them, but her body wasn't cooperating. Her mother went back to counting the money and she stayed frozen in the entrance of the doorway.

No.

No, please, no.

Not again.

Her breathing intensified and her eyes had yet to move away from the woman at the table.

For years she had thought about what she would do to her, had her mother not been dead. For years she went over her training, every word she would say, how she would have the woman begging for forgiveness had she only been strong enough in that moment.

She was back and she was weak again. The terror had her frozen, the realisation after the relief had her mind in shock.

"Who?" She whispered, desperately looking for her voice.

"Mmm?" The woman looked up from her seat. "What?"

"Who," she felt a kind of delirium enter her mind, "who did you hand her too?"

The delirium was slowly turning into mania, but she let it. Better to be hysterical and able to move, then in shock and frozen.

She was going to kill her.

"Oh, you know that rich couple in the gated community?" The woman was now putting the counted money in one stack. "They opened some kind of orphanage for children whose parents were killed by Affected."

Her eyes followed the woman's movements as she stood from her chair and walked to the cupboard where she removed the coffee can. The coffee can they used for money savings. The money savings the woman had spent on drugs.

"They only wanted good looking kids though, something about pictures and articles, so you were out." The woman shrugged as she put the money in the can, giving it one last longing look, before she put it back on the shelf.

No.

Her hands shook as she watched the woman ready the powder on the spoon.

No.

The floor was unstable under her feet, but her mind was clear.

"I'm going to kill you." She spoke, her tone was as if she was commenting on the weather.

The sun is shining, water is wet, and she was going to kill her.

"What did you say?" The woman wasn't even looking at her, just focused on adding water to the spoon.

Her mind reconnected her feet to her body and suddenly the situation couldn't have been clearer.

"I'm going to kill you." She said again, putting one foot in front of the other. Yes, yes, she was. Her mind was buzzing and it almost made her feel dizzy, but she was going to get her revenge. Finally.

This time the woman did hear her and looked up confused. Something in her face must have tipped her off because the woman's eyes widened in shock.

Everything was immediately happening in both slow motion and very rapidly.

The woman ducked away from the table, to the side, as she was suddenly standing in the kitchen, not noticing the blood under her feet from standing on loose needles. The woman dashed towards the door, but her hands went to the kitchen drawers before she followed. The big knife was still in the second one to the left, as it always had been.

"Stop! Stop!" The woman screamed, standing in the middle of the living room, both hands stretched out in front of her. "We can talk!"

The woman said more, but the only thing she heard was the blood rushing through her ears. Her heart was beating so fast it could jump out of her chest at any moment, and the pain she should have felt on her feet was non-existent. The woman's mouth kept moving, but she wasn't hearing it. Knife in her hand and eyes on the woman's face she moved. Her steps were too big, her legs moving erratically, a reaction to all the adrenaline in her system and something they had trained out of her in the military.

The woman saw her coming and ducked in the hallway moving towards the door to the outside.

No.

Her legs gave a sudden boost of energy and strength, pushing her forward and tackling the woman to the ground. Sitting on her back she remembered enough to pin the arms down with her legs, the woman's nails scratching in her shins, but she didn't notice. She didn't care.

More noises were coming out of the woman's mouth, now louder and higher in pitch, no longer aimed at her, but towards the people outside. She was screaming for help.

Nobody would come for her. Not here, not now.

The hand not holding the knife moved to the woman's head, grabbing her hair and slamming it face first into the ground. Another scream made its way through the small apartment and she felt something break under her hand.

She didn't care.

Leaning forward she smelled the familiar scent of cigarettes coming from the woman's hair, a lingering scent of vomit from her mouth, and it took her a second to restore the function of her tongue. Her breathing was heavy and her arms shook, but the strength was still there. It wasn't how she had pictured it, but this would be fine. This would be better.

"I am going to kill you." She whispered at last, raising the knife as high as her arms allowed her.

The knife was heavy in her hands, her arms shaking, and her lungs desperately looking for air.

She was about the bring it down, right in the woman's neck, when the hallway began to fade away. Her arms wouldn't move down, the woman still shaking underneath her. Her body was frozen, locked into place by a will that wasn't her own.

Go down! She screamed at her arms to move. Kill her!

Nothing happened and panic overtook her body as her eyesight darkened and she tried to scream out loud. Not a sound came out of her mouth.

No! No!

She had to kill her!

The body underneath her dissolved into nothingness and she fought with her very being for her body to move.

No! Please!

Those were her last thoughts as she felt her own body fall.

Her heart shot in her throat, gravity no longer an issue as her body was dragged down into infinity. Her limbs were out of her control and panic filled her body in less than a second.

Familiar liquid filled her lungs and she couldn't take it anymore. Adrenaline still present in her body her body felt like it had been moving before she even realised it. Pushing, kicking, screaming, she did everything to try to get the walls around her to move.

Stop! Just stop! Let me go!

Suddenly light filled her vision, the water seeped away, and she pressed her eyes shut, her feet still kicking out. Hands touched her body and she was lifted in the air, her cries falling deaf to her own ears.

She was saved. She was free.

She immediately tried to expel all the water from her lungs, coughing everything she had in her mouth and nose. Somebody was assisting by tapping her on her back. With all of the water out of her lungs she could finally breathe again.

Taking big and deep breaths she let her body go limp, all the energy that had once filled her completely spend.

She was alive.

She tried to get her eyes to open, but the light was too bright. Who had saved her? What had happened?

Hearing the commotion around her, it sounded like French.

".. elle meurt!" Screamed one person.

"…obtenir le Guérisseur!" Yelled another voice.

What were they saying? She tried to lift her arms again, but it was futile.

Slowly everything around her started to turn black and she just felt so tired. She wanted to sleep, just sleep and never wake up. The heat in her chest was her only comfort as she felt herself fall into the deep darkness, her thoughts silent.

Over the next few weeks, or what she assumed were weeks, it became clear that falling into the darkness hadn't been her dying again. She had woken up, gasping for air, and braced herself for the water filling her lungs, only to get clean and fresh air.

Air was filling her lungs, not water.

Again, and again she woke up in panic, thoughts of small spaces and drowning, death and cold mountains, and the woman and her old home. It was clear to her the last one had been nothing but a torturous dream, letting herself believe she had gone back in time. That she had been on time to save her little sister.

Now and then she woke up wailing, her body not fully under her command, and tears streaming down her face. Her arms never did what she wanted them to do and instead of wiping off her tears and her mouth shutting up, she was only capable of hitting herself in the face, which made it all worse. Her only light in this confusing time was the person that always came to console her, rock her back and forth, and let her fall asleep to the warmth of a chest and the drum of their heartbeat.

All the signs pointed in the same direction and, after several crying episodes and observing moments, she came to a single conclusion: she was now a baby. All the signs were there. Lots of sleep, everything was blurry, she had no teeth, the milky liquid she kept tasting, and the people that picked her up felt like giants.

At first, she had been afraid, afraid that she had indeed gone back in time, back to the woman, now as a defenceless baby, or that her new parents would get annoyed with her and leave.

Every wail and every tear that she let out she tried to hold back. Pressing her mouth shut she tried to not make a single noise. In case they got annoyed with her she couldn't fight back. She had to grow, she had to be strong, and she had to survive.

Her new parent, or what she hoped was her parent, was the very opposite of her fears. They were gentle. They picked her up every time she let out a cry, her diapers were changed in seconds, the milk was always just the right temperature, and she fell asleep against a warm chest more than she had alone in her crib.

She felt warm, safe, and protected. All her walls were coming down and her eyes couldn't even see clearly yet.

Years and years of stress, panic, and fighting. Weeks of drowning and the replay of the worst moment of her life, and now people loved her. They held her in their arms, warm and protected, they pressed lips against her face and head, they talked to her, sometimes in English and sometimes in French.

Months flew by and she relaxed. No longer did she hold her breath so no cries could be heard, no longer would she press her face in the mattress of her crib so her tears would be absorbed. She had let these people in her heart and her walls had crumbled, one by one, gesture after another.

Someone cared.

Someone truly cared about her.

She was safe.

The sense of safety had long set over her and now she was no longer focused on pretending she didn't exist. Instead she tried to get her body to move and her eye sight to focus, curiosity taking over her previous fear. Where was she? This couldn't be her old home. Was she now someone else? Who was her new family? Was this France or England? What about the Affected?

Her mind was racing and active, but her body was still useless. Even now as she tried to roll in her crib, her legs were flopping around and her arms were heavy. At some point she hit herself in the face with her own small foot. Ignoring her instinct to cry out at the accident, she tried to power through. No way she would wake her parents at her attempt of movement. The lack of light in the room made it clear enough that it was night, and she had kept them up long enough over the last couple of months with her night terrors. She wouldn't have it.

Her eyes still weren't fully developed and everything around her was blurry, but she could see shapes, edges, and light in general. Sadly, that was all and she had yet to focus in on details.

The door suddenly creaked open, a sound she heard many times before. How had they noticed? She had been so quiet! Frowning she ignored the weird coincidence and didn't bother to pretend she wasn't awake. The light in the room turned on and a familiar shape came into view. She moved her mouth and tried to speak, but her lack of teeth and tongue coordination made it impossible.

'Pick me up and talk to me!', came out as, "Baba baba ba."

"Well aren't you active tonight, my little star." A manly voice said.

Her father! It had been a real surprise when she discovered that she had a father now. He was large, with light eyes, dark hair and beard. It had been the only things she was able to see out of her eyes. He sounded like he loved her though, that was the only thing she cared about.

"Bababa baba." Was her only answer while she, successfully she might add, moved her arms above her as the universal sign a baby wanted to be picked up.

The voice, her father, laughed.

"So demanding. Just like your mother." Before he picked her up under her arms and put her against his chest.

He sounded British, but the woman's voice that held and spoke to her was French. She understood her father, but so far, she had yet to understand a word the woman said to her. She waited patiently for the word 'mama' to be repeated in front of her, but that had yet to happen.

Maybe she had more luck with her father than with her mother this time.

Everything was still blurry around her, but she could make out the familiar characteristics. Black hair, black beard, and light eyes. He put her against his chest and she immediately felt the effects on her body. The heat of his chest warmed her body and the comforting scent of burning wood filled her nose. She felt her eyes getting heavier, her body warm and relaxed. She was safe in his arms, she could sleep and he would protect her. All her instincts were telling her the same.

This hadn't been the plan! A part of her brain was crying out. She needed to stay awake, she needed to figure out where she was, who she was.

He kept talking in a low soothing voice, but she wasn't hearing anything anymore.

Her: 0 / Father: 273.

"Father?" She spoke. Her pudgy legs had been hard to get under control, but at almost three years old she had mastered walking.

Beady, the house elf, had put her in a light green dress that day and Maia had quickly snuck a pair of shorts underneath. She wasn't a fan of flashing the whole world her panties. Even though she was three years old, in a house with only two family members, and with no draft indoors. It was just something instinctual.

Knocking on the already open door of the study she let her eyes wander through the room.

The study was filled with bookcases, but not even close to the number of books in the library. The accents were light; white walls and golden finishes. It was like the whole house: bright. Paintings that moved hung on the wall, and on the opposite side off the room there was a light brown oak desk with a man behind it. Her father had dark black hair that curled at his nape, a dark beard, which he at least trimmed, and light grey eyes with small crowfeet at the corners. His features were sharp and handsome, and he looked good for a man halfway towards fifty. Dressed in a black pants and dark green waistcoat, fully in suit even though he was in his home, he stood out in the light-coloured room.

He was sitting behind is desk looking over some letters when he heard her voice coming from the entrance of the door and looked up.

"Maia." He leaned back in his chair, a little smirk on his face. His voice was low and comforting, she immediately smiled back. "You can just come in you know? You don't have to knock."

Now a small scowl made its way on her face. She knew it was childish to scowl, but when everyone treated you as a child you were quick to forget yourself.

"May I come in?" She asked, ignoring his words. Knocking was the proper thing to do and she would keep her decorum.

He let out a chuckle at her attitude and petted his lap. She walked into the room to his chair and held out her arms to be lifted up. Putting his hands under her armpits, he lifted her on his lap. Looking at the letters on the desk she concluded it was nothing important. Just some letters from Gringotts with stock prices.

"Now what does my little star want with me?" His chest rumbled when he talked.

She looked up, her own black curly hair falling in her face, observing the similarities between her and her father. Maia looked a lot like her father, with dark curly hair and light grey eyes. On the other hand she had most of her mother's facial features, her face already more oval shaped, even with her chipmunk cheeks. Up until this day she had only seen pictures of her mother and it was clear she had died during or close to giving birth. Reincarnation didn't care about giving her two parents this time it seemed.

Pulling her thoughts away from her dead mother, she looked at her father's squire head and couldn't help but be relieved she had inherited some of her mother's features. Best of both worlds, she guessed.

"I'm bored father," she spoke. Her voice was high and she had to focus extra hard to get the 'th' just right. Her tongue was just another muscle she had to train. "Will you tell me a story?"

Just like reincarnation didn't care about surviving parents, it cared even less about the rules of time. Her current life was taking place in 1980's, in France. No electronics, no holograms, no guns, no knifes, no Affected. Days were spend reading, walking around, bothering her father and grandmother, but it still wasn't enough. She was almost routinely bored.

Everything that did keep her busy got a hundred percent of her attention. Walking, done. Hand/eye coordination, still working on. Learning English, done, and she was learning French with an almost obsessive focus. Anything to get her mind off the inevitable, mind breaking boredom. Her father and grandmother had put their foot down at her schooling and she would start her classes at the age of four, not a day earlier. Now she was just a three-year-old trying to sneak in the library and read anything she got her hands on.

Her father grinned, moving the hair out of her face with one hand.

"Realised your grandmother put the lock back on the library, did you?" He pressed a kiss on her head at her unamused frown. "You can't blame her, little star. The last time we lost you for hours, only to find you in a corner of the library, on the ground, trying to draw out runes."

His light grey eyes focused on her sternly, but it was ruined by the twinkle in them. She frowned and looked the other way, pretending not to hear him. How was she supposed to know runes were 'difficult and dangerous magic'? It was explained well enough in the book and she had only been trying out a light rune. Magic was completely new to her and it as fascinating. Who wouldn't be curious?

It honestly wasn't her fault. In her last life it had taken her sixteen years to get some form of education and that had been about warfare and leadership. Now everything she didn't know, yet, was just a door away.

"I can tell you the story about your mother and me?" Her father said, pulling her away from her evolving plan of trying to find something sharp and picking the lock.

Maia nodded, agreeing to hear the story again. Her father wouldn't talk to her about how her mother had passed, but he loved telling the story on how they had met. Pressing her head against his chest she made herself comfortable and looked up at his face.

"Well," he started, "I first saw your mother at the International Conference on Defensive Spells back in 1969."

His eyes got this distant look he always had when recalling the past. She just stayed silent and listened.

"I was the only Black there. My sister, Walburga, was dealing with two preteen boys and had her hands full, and my younger brother Cygnus was getting his three daughters ready for their school year at Hogwarts. It was just me this time." He smiled slightly at the memory.

"Most of these conferences are fairly boring. People complaining about the current state of things and then going to get something to drink together." He looked down at her. She was still listening attentively. "The people attending were old and wrinkly, not the people you would be very interested in. Then in comes your mother, like the light of the room."

A sappy grin made it on his face, but Maia kept her mouth shut.

"Wild light brown hair, hazel eyes, wearing a dark fur coat, and a French accent. She couldn't have been older than thirty, obviously from the French Ministry, and the whole room fell silent." Her father was speaking as if this was some kind of fairytale. "It was love at first sight."

He sighed and she just looked at him skeptically. She had seen pictures of her mother, and while she was most definitely not ugly, she definitely was an acquired taste. Her mother had looked very androgynous, with no big curves, tall, short hair, and a fiery look in her eyes. Her father had fallen in love at first sight, sadly she couldn't ask her mother if it had been the same for her.

Maia already knew where the rest of the story was going, she had heard it many times before.

"She made her way straight to me and introduced herself. We spent the whole night talking and we met up many times afterwards. Eventually I moved to France to be with her and after six years we got married." He looked at one of the photos on his desk.

It was a picture of her father and her mother, dancing at their wedding. The picture moved, first showing the happy laugh of her father, who then twirled, and it changed to the grinning face of her mother. It had been spring and flowers bloomed everywhere around them. Her father hadn't had his beard yet but had his long black hair in a ponytail, wearing a set of dark robes, her mother's hair was shorter and loose, wearing a sleek white dress. They both looked incredibly happy.

"Later we decided that we wanted a family and then you were born on the 23rd of September. Right on the autumn equinox, my little star: Maia Eltanin Black." He pressed another kiss to the top of her head.

She knew verbatim what was coming next.

"Maia from the first born of the Pleiades sisters, who were turned into stars by Zeus. She who surpassed her sisters in beauty and became the mother of Hermes. Eltanin from the brightest star in the constellation Draco, which originates from the Arabic 'dragon's head'." He explained.

Maia rolled her eyes. She had heard the origin of her names a hundred times before, but her father loved telling her. He chuckled at her face.

"I wanted to name you Lyra first, but your mother thought the meaning of 'harp' was too subtle for her daughter. She had the name Eris in mind, after the goddess of strive and discord, but that is a dwarf planet, not a star or constellation." He moved his hand over her hair. "We had many arguments about the naming tradition of my family, but your mother was fine with the name Maia."

Now she looked up surprised. That was the first time she had heard him speak about them actually agreeing to her name. His amusement was clear when he looked at her.

"I think she was happy with the meaning. Great in Latin or mother in Greek. She wanted you to be great and she herself was also represented as your mother." The corner of his mouth rose in a little smile. "She immediately agreed when I proposed it. If she had her way she would have named you Sophie Jr."

Pulling her nose up at that little fact she was glad with the name she had now. She was liked the name Sophie, but Junior? She would have to stick with Maia on that one. It was so ingrained in her now that she had already forgotten her previous one. Not that it saddened her, good riddance.

Her father laughed. "Yeah I didn't think you would like that."

His eyes turned a bit melancholic after that. She pressed her head back against his chest and could hear his heart beat behind her ear. He always got melancholic while thinking of her mother. She imagined hearing his heart break behind his sternum. In her last life her father had been a no-show and now her father had been madly in love.

"I was inspired for Eltanin because of my niece Narcissa. She confessed to me that if she had a son she would like to call him Draco." He gestured to one of the cards on his desk. "I just received a card, she had her son and she indeed did name him Draco. Born on the fifth of June, just a few days ago."

Looking up at him her eyes were wide and curiosity filled her body. She had a cousin?

Her father instantly recognised the glint in her eyes and predicted her question before she could even fully open her mouth.

"We can't meet him yet Maia." He spoke, his voice resolute and his eyes unmoving. "England isn't a save place right now, and I won't have us going there until it is absolutely safe. You know this."

There was no wavering in his voice and she closed her mouth again. Right, she thought, 'dangerous'. He never told her why it was dangerous, just like he didn't tell her how her mother died.

She wanted to do nothing more than ask him about his family. To ask why he stayed in France and never mentioned England? Why it was just her, him, and her grandmother all the time? But he didn't like that. She theorised her father had some falling out with his family and they were both giving each other the silent treatment. The card about her newly born cousin was the first thing he had received from his family in years, or at least the only thing he had told her about.

"I understand father," she said, speaking for the first time since he started talking, "I was just curious."

She would most likely search the library again, for anything like pictures, old papers, or letters. At least when they removed that stupid lock.

The warmth his body was exuding had her body relaxing and her eyelid dropping. Yawning she pressed her head against his chest and felt his hand resting on her shoulder.

"Go to sleep little one." Her father rested his hand on her head, his family already forgotten. "I'll put you in bed later."

Smiling she let her consciousness leave her, no longer afraid when going to bed or when waking up, protected in her father's arms.