Hi everyone, I hope ya'll are having a good month so far. In any case, here's the next chapter. Please leave a review at the end, lemme know what ya'll wanna see the girls do once they're out in the muggle world.
~MJB~
Chapter 2 - Questions
June 25th, 1992 - 6 Days before Meissa's 12th birthday (Thursday)
Location: Nigri Sanctuarium
Meissa makes sure her uncle's too busy with his potions again before she slips away to head up to the third floor. She needs to talk to the portrait - to her mother. She has so many questions that she wants answered - questions she couldn't ask because Remmy popped her away when she started to have a break down in the room.
Discovering that her mother cared, cared enough to store away memories for her in the event of them being separated, was too much for her. She has always wondered, hoped, that her mother cared about her. That she is different from what everyone says she is.
She knows that her Aunt Narcissa is constantly telling her that her mother would love her, regardless of what she does but for the first time Meissa truly knows. She knows, from her mother's own words, how much she was cared for. It was the greatest gift she could ever get and it made her hate the fallen Dark Lord even more.
Half way up the stairs she hears the familiar greeting that has her dashing the rest of the way until she's standing in front of the portrait of her mother. Now that she knows she can see the similarities.
She has so many questions but the first one that leaves her was 'why'.
Bellatrix looks at her for a moment before sighing. "You need to be more specific dearie."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Bellatrix looks at her for a long moment before sighing. "You weren't ready."
"I wasn't ready?!" she shouts at the portrait. She winces when she realizes how loud she got and waited, staring at the stairs, for a minute before relaxing. She forgot that there's four floors separating her from her godfather. The only way for her uncle to hear her was if the entire building shook - which, if she thinks about it, would take a lot of magic. "That's how you excuse not telling me that you're my mother?"
Bellatrix crosses her arms, leveling a look at Meissa that has her drawing back.
Was this what Meissa's victims feel when she glares at them?
No wonder they always back off when she glares at them.
"I am not obligated to tell you things that I do not deem you ready to know," Bellatrix states sternly.
"But… why," Meissa whispers, looking away. "I don't have any pictures of you… I've looked all over the place and I've never see any pictures of you."
"I know," Bellatrix sighs as she inclines back in the one chair painted in her portrait, one of her legs thrown lazily over the arm rest. "If I have to make any guesses, Cissy hid them."
"But why?"
"Because of you."
"Me?"
"Yes."
Meissa frowns at her mother. "But why?" she asks again, getting a look from her.
"You're a smart girl, you figure it out."
Meissa frowns at her again before she looks at the door. She felt tempted, like the answers she has been looking for hides behind this door. She looks at the portrait to see if she may enter the room but finds that she is gone. Curious about where she could've gone she turns and tests the doorknob, smiling to herself when she finds that it is not locked.
She enters the room, allowing the door to close behind her, and made a beeline for the Pensieve. Meissa feels a need to know if there is anything else to know from the memory that she had viewed the day before. So she checks the memory in the Pensieve before she lowers her head into the Pensieve.
She closes her eyes to the lurch, once again barely having time to regret her actions when she finds herself standing in the nursery room. She listens to the lullaby once more, humming along to the lullaby and this time she sees her mother leave the room, following her out and down a familiar corridor.
They're on the second floor, not too far from where her bedroom is outside the memory. But she has never seen any nursery when she explored the second floor. Puzzled and curious about this she makes a note to look for the nursery at another time. Instead she focuses on following her mother up the stairs and into the room. Noticing that the portrait of her mother was not hanging across the hall from the door. Which means that sometimes between the memory being extracted and her mother being sent to Azkaban her mother had the time to get her portrait done.
Upon entering the room she finds her mother looking at her once again, seemingly looking at her directly. She can see, now that she isn't distracted by the abrupt sight of being looked at, the sadness in her eyes. Sadness, regret, remorse - just about every word that can be used to describe the look on her mother's face.
She listens to her mother express the purpose of the room to her until she realizes that she has gotten to the point where she had to leave the other day.
"By default, the only bottles you will be able to see are the ones meant for every day events. In the event that I'm not there for… certain milestones, the bottles will hopefully serve as a guide," Meissa's mother is saying as she steps up to her. Bellatrix turns and walks to the shelves in question, which contains no bottles as of yet.
Causing Meissa to wonder if the memory she is viewing is the very first memory? But that doesn't make sense, since Bellatrix said that the shelves contain copies of her memories. That would imply that she has been working on them for some time.
She watches as her mother taps the third shelf from the left and she stares as it shifts forward and then to the left, revealing an entrance. "Behind this door will be the bottles containing spells, the correct wand movements, and the basic information you will need to perform the spell. Some of the bottles will contain spells that I would not recommend practicing on your own." Bellatrix pauses and Meissa walks closer to find her frowning as if in thought. "The spell bottles that I would suggest having a partner around… I'll have to put a ward around them," the woman mutters to herself.
Meissa isn't sure but seeing this side of her mother feels like a gut wrenching experience.
For so long her mother has been a faceless entity. She knows that she has been compared to her mother for years - many has cursed her for how similar she looks. But seeing her, in the memory, she can see how similar they are when she has her glamour earrings on. It makes her wonder though. Why would Aunt Cissy want her to look like a carbon copy of her mother?
She follows her mother into the secret room, her eyes widening at the sheer amount of bottles that sat upon the shelves. "Wow," she mutters to herself. "Why are there so many?"
"I've been working on this for nearly two years now," Bellatrix comments as she touches a shelf. "Hopefully these will serve you well." Meissa moves closer to the shelf and sees that it has a label on the side. 'Martial Combat'. "Every imaginable spell or technique that I know of are here. You're not obligated to learn each one, dearie, but they are here should you decide you wish to learn."
Meissa looks at her mother, in awe of what Bellatrix has done for her.
"This, of course, will not replace my absence in your life," Bellatrix continues before she turns around to look at Meissa. Or it gives Meissa the illusion of being looked at. "Meissa… my daughter… my one true heir… know that I am with you. Always."
With those last words everything stilled before becoming dark and Meissa is left standing in what she can only believe to be the void. The end of the memory in the Pensieve.
Without something to distract her she is left to ponder the words of her mother.
Is there some kind of secret meaning behind them? Or are they meant to be taken at face value?
Unsure of what to think she looks up towards the ceiling, to the glass like ceiling and after a moment she feels another sickening lurch - her eyes instinctively closing to the sensation. When she felt solid ground underneath her once more she opens her eyes once more, the family wand's tip briefly touching the wisps before she manages to gather the wisps into the container.
She looks at the date labeled on the bottle, thinking to herself.
The year was important to her.
It was the year Voldemort died or disappeared. It was the year her parents left her life.
The month though. It tells her that she prepared, months before the downfall of Voldemort, of the potential defeat of the 'Dark Lord' and his Death Eaters. Everything her Aunt Cissy has told her of her mother contradicted this very theory. Her mother is either someone who cares very little about the safety and wellbeing of her family or she truly cares to the point of risking certain death if she succeeds.
She isn't sure but she has a feeling that this date is very important. Why else would her mother make a point to label the bottle? Except she couldn't ask her mother about it and she has a feeling that her mother wouldn't have told anyone about what she was planning. Which means… there is literally no one she can ask about the room.
Feeling as if she has lost the chance to understand her mother she turns and places the bottle on the shelf. Looking at the various bottles she could view she turns away, not feeling the need to select one or take a closer look at the labels.
She makes her way to the exit, her eyes distant as she ponders about her mother and her reasonings. Scarcely halfway to the door she hears a low chiming noise that causes her to pause. A look to her left ensured her that the weapons are not the source of the sound. She turns to her right and, to her amazement, she sees one of the tomes seemingly wiggling in its place on the shelf.
"What in Merlin's name," she mutters in disbelief, wondering to herself how she could have missed something like that before. Unless… unless this is the first time it has done this in her presence.
Unsure she slowly makes her way over to the bookshelf, drawing the family wand out. Common sense told her to make no skin contact with the tome in case it is cursed or bespelled. Trust in her mother has her reaching for the tome and, after a brief minute of an internal war, she touches the leather bound tome. Her fingers flinching back unbidden before she firmly told herself that nothing bad will happen. She grabs hold of the thick book, heaving a sigh of relief when nothing seemed to happen, and tugs it free from its spot.
She has to wrap her arms around the thick tome to keep from dropping it and carries it over to the nearby table. Careful to avoid damaging the book she sets it gently onto the ebony table before she starts to study her prize. She notes that the sound has stopped, believing to have ceased its call the moment she made contact with the spine of the tome.
She studies the cover, at the neat cursive that makes up the title.
The Life and Adventure of Otter and Friends
Curious about this she opens the tome and finds the author to be Jehanna Morgen Rieger.
She has never heard of the family name, Rieger, so she figures that the family must be from another country at least. Making a mental note to search for the family later she turns the page once more before she sees the same neat cursive from the title.
To my little bright star, may this guide you through your life.
Love, mama