Chapter 7 - Happy Birthday!
July 1st, 1992 - Meissa's 12th birthday (Wednesday)
Location: Nigri Sanctuarium
Meissa's twelfth birthday finds the auburn hair girl sitting at her desk as the sun begins its ascent into the sky. The Black Heiress has been awake for hours, unable to sleep as she waits for the exact hour and minutes of her birth. Her Aunt Cissy once told her that she had been born precisely at 9:19 AM on July 1st, 1980 - which means, when her fourteenth birthday arrives her soulmate mark will finally appear at the exact moment she was born. Down to the very second. Or at least… start to appear. The full picture can take anywhere from a few months to decades to fully form.
The thought of it still scares her but she knows, from looking at her godmother, that the soulmate mark doesn't always mean it has to be a romantic soulmate. Some of the tomes she has found in the Black Library indicated that the soulmate mark has always been taken into consideration when arranged marriages are bartered. She still hasn't seen her godmother's mark - it's considered rude to try and look at a person's mark without their permission. The only ones exempted from this rule is the one whom the mark represented.
She's unsure if she wants to have a soulmate mark but she has heard stories about those whose marks has never appeared - the general attitude to those without a mark disgusted her. The assumptions that the mark must represent a romantic bond also irritated her. She often, usually on her birthdays, find herself wondering what would've happened if the marks had been there since birth instead of appearing at their fourteenth birthdays.
She usually only considers this only at her birthdays but now, thinking about her friends who live among the non-magicals, she wonders if magic and whatever forces that decides the soulmate bonds has a reason to have the marks appear at the person's fourteenth birthday. She doesn't know much about the non-magicals but she does remember her godfather mentioning that they're unlucky to have no way to find their other half.
As much as the idea of having a mark irritated her - and scared her if she's being honest with herself - she can't really imagine trying to find her 'other half' without a mark.
With an irritated huff she pushes away from the desk and turns to face her room. Her thoughts have been repeating itself for the last four years and at this point she knows better than to let herself get stuck in the endless loop of thoughts. Instead she focuses her attention at her room, studying the walls and furniture.
Meissa's personal bedroom consist of dark vibrant purple walls with white/blue swirls. The furniture's themselves are made of a dark colored wood - African Ebony she thinks - and complimented by a cream colored fabric for the loveseats and the bedcovers. Her bed has shimmering silver drapes drawn around it, more than adequate enough to prevent anyone from peeking in on her from the door. With a bit of magic - not done by her - her line of sight is not hampered at all by the drapes, which is handy in her opinion.
It had taken her a long time to notice that the swirls on the walls form animals. For the most part she has identified a stag with an impressive amount of points, a grim-like dog that freaked her out the first time she noticed it, a large wolf-like creature, an otter, a smaller stag that she can only assume is younger than the other one, and a smaller dog - it seems like a small breed that doesn't quite reach the knees. Sometimes she thinks she sees the animals in different places than she did before - although, with magic in play she considers it very likely that someone has enchanted her walls.
Some days she feels that there's something else near the otter-like swirls besides the smaller stag and the small dog. But she has never been able to identify what that mass of swirls looks like. She just hopes that she'll figure it out one day but until then she'll just have to accept that she cannot for the time being.
Unsure what she wants to do for her twelfth birthday she goes over to the loveseat, gently picking up her napping familiar and setting her onto her lap after she sat down. Once the kitten is fully comfortable on her lap she picks up Rieger's book with a slight pout on her face. She has recently finished the first chapter, just before the clock struck midnight to mark her twelfth birthday. It had been a really long chapter, seemingly covering a year at Hogwarts.
Otter, the main character, is an immensely smart witch who befriends Stag and Terrier after a rough and bumpy start to their year. It amused Meissa a great deal to read the constant clashes between Otter and Terrier with Stag always playing the middle man between the two. To the Black Heiress, Terrier seems like a jealous boy with an extremely short fuse. In a way, it reminds her greatly of the youngest Weasley boy so she automatically hates him.
She wanted to read more but she found, after finishing the first chapter, that the second chapter is blank. In fact, all the chapters after the first is blank. She knows that there's more because she can see the page numbers and the chapter titles - which is usually something like 'Chapter Three'. But the content of the chapters seems to be gone.
Meissa's not entirely sure why this is the case but her best guess is that there's some kind of spell on the book that is preventing her from reading the chapters. Maybe the owner of the book or her mama wants her to read the chapters at certain times and not one second before. Either way she's stuck unless she figures out a way to unlock the chapters.
She's not entirely sure how she'll find the enchantment but she's fully aware there's many different kinds of spells in the entirety of Britain, not including the spells out in the whole world. The chances of locating one spell would be like, to borrow a phrase from Hermione, finding a needle in a pile of straw.
She doesn't think the spell she made to help her speed up her researching will be of much help, not without knowing the specifics. It's also possible that the spell may be brand new or not well known. If that is the case then it's extremely unlikely that she'll find anything. Before her mind could follow that line of thought even further she hears a distinctive pop that has her lifting her head from the couch. She's so familiar with the sound that she simply turns her attention to the house-elf patiently waiting for her acknowledgement.
"Hello Remmy," she greets, "is it time?"
"Yes, Mistress Meissa. Lady Cissy and little Dragon is here," Remmy announces before producing a vial with a familiar liquid within. With an unhappy look on her face, Meissa eases herself into a sitting position before she accepts the potion, tossing it back in one motion. She barely allows the taste to settle onto her tongue before she gulps it down. Only the barest hint of the taste lingers in her mouth.
"I will be down soon," Meissa declares, allowing Remmy to send the vial away to be cleaned and returned to her godfather's potion lab. "Please set aside -," the Black Heiress just barely managed to get the words out of her mouth when, with a snap of her fingers, Remmy already has clothes laid out for her. A casual pair of black trousers and a loose fitting grey button up shirt. It may be too casual to wear around the Lord Malfoy - fortunately, however, he rarely ever attends her birthday celebrations. So she rarely ever has to deal with his ideals of what a pureblood should wear.
Since that will likely include a floor length robe or dress gown, for a lady, and something highly uncomfortable she has no issue with the Lord Malfoy not being present for her birthdays. After what happened during the Yule break, she doesn't want him anywhere near her or in any of the Black estates. A fact her godmother is fully aware of at this point.
Meissa gently moves the kitten from her lap, getting a protesting mewl from her sleepy familiar. A soft word from her has the kitten settling down once more, allowing her to go and change into her clothes. Due to the simplicity of her clothes, it is an easy matter of discarding her sleep ware and putting on the clothes laid out for her. Since she has never gone to sleep Meissa's hair is, for once, not a tangled mess.
Still, she knows better than to believe that the matter regarding her hair can be resolved with a simple brushing. With a brush in hand she settles down and set to work on getting the tangles out of her hair. Despite the fact she could request that Remmy does her hair, she knows that falling out of the habit of caring for her hair would prompt her godfather or godmother into doing the task for her. Usually that results in an elaborate hairstyle that makes her feel odd just for the complexities of this task - that's just if her godmother does it. If her godfather gets involved, she knows he'll get frustrated with the thickness of her hair and threaten to have it cut if she insists on not caring for her hair.
After she gets the worse of the tangles out of her hair she gets a bottle of a potion out and uses a fair amount to tame the unruliness of her hair. She's not fond of using the potion since it's fairly pricy and the length of her hair meant she gets maybe two uses out of a single bottle. In the long run, her godmother has decided that the potion - because of the costs - would be reserved for special occasions.
Her birthday, unfortunately, is one of those special occasions.
Instead of leaving her hair down or twisting her long hair into a braid, she decides to go with a combination of the two. She gathers half of her hair back into a ponytail, leaving the rest to cascade down her back. Once she binds her hair up with a ribbon she gets started on braiding the rest of the tail. She secures the braid with another ribbon of the same color before running the brush over her hair once more.
Once she is satisfied that her hair is presentable and that her clothes are straight, she checks on her familiar and asks the kitten if she'd like to accompany her. With a sleepy mewl as her answer she leaves the kitten to their catnap and heads downstairs to the dining room.
A short trip later she finds Draco in the formal living room, dressed in his best clothes and his platinum blonde hair slicked back from his pale face. She rather likes him better when his hair isn't slicked back - he looks less arrogant and rather casual when it's not gelled back. However, the Lord Malfoy has always insisted that Draco should look like a proper pureblood Heir. To Lucius, it means being immaculate in every possible second.
Meissa just thinks that it's too high end for her tastes. In many ways she's thankful that her godparents were not so demanding of her. One part of her thinks it's' because they've spent the past six years undoing three years of bigotry from her Great Aunt Walburga. As well as ensuring that the bigotry from the general public didn't take too heavy of a toll on her.
Her mind flashes through years of accusations, of spells thrown at her, and her magic lashing out before she forces herself to push aside the memories. There is a time and place for everything.
"Meissa," Draco greets her, a smile appearing on his face once he notices her. The smile causing his face to look younger, like the boy she knew before Lucius took over his education after his eighth birthday. "Happy birthday!"
She grins at him and wraps her arms around him in a hug, noting that she has maybe an inch on him. She refrains from commenting it to him, saving it for another day. Instead she cherishes the rare moment with her cousin before she releases the blonde - fighting to keep the instinctive shudder from becoming obvious. Just in time to keep him from complaining from the prolonged contact.
"Thank you," she tells him formally, clearing her throat. She gets an eye roll from the blonde and turns to her aunt, who had waited for their hug to end. "Hello, Aunt Cissy," she greets before she finds herself wrapped in a firm but gentle hug. She endures this hug, despite the crawling sensation currently building up in her.
Hermione has made her realize that despite how much she dislikes prolonged contact, other people do not share that same sentiment. So for them, for those she cares about, she endures the hugs to the best of her abilities. Some days she can barely tolerate a five second touch but she tries her best when they truly need it.
"Happy birthday, Meissa," Narcissa smiles at her goddaughter, her glacial blue eyes glancing over the now twelve years old girl. She remembers fondly of the moment when her sister asks her to become the godmother of her newborn child - of when the girl was placed within her arms. She had sworn, after agreeing to become Meissa's godmother, to always protect and guide her niece.
It saddens Narcissa somewhat, to accept that her niece is growing up when she knows that her niece has had her childhood stolen from her in so many ways. To accept that her niece is sacrificing the rest of her childhood to become the Lady of the Noble and Ancient House of Black. She knows that her goddaughter has already filed the paper works necessary for her to be recognized by the Wizengamot council as the new Lady Black. All that is missing is the ring.
"Thank you," Meissa smiles gratefully at her aunt before she gestures towards the formal dining room where she knows the house elves have most likely already set up for their birthday feast. Meissa wonders briefly about where her godfather is as she leads them into the dining room. Only to find out that her godfather is already standing by the table, dressed in his best robes. His hair, for once, clean of any and all grease from the usual potion making progress.
"Meissa," Severus greets, clasping the young Heiress on the shoulder. "How do you feel?" His eyes, however, asked if she has remembered to take her potions. A slight nod from her allowed for him to relax, his shoulders lowering just a bit as the tension left him. "Happy birthday."
She smiles at him before he guides her to sit at the head of the table - a seat that has been occupied by her godfather for years. The fact that he's giving up the seat to her…
Meissa looks towards her aunt and cousin.
Draco's face indicated his confusion in the events happening before him. His training enough to tell him that something truly important is happening before him but beyond that he doesn't know. The fact he hasn't demanded answers from any of them indicated he has some form of an idea of what's happening.
Her aunt, on the other hand, seems like she is attempting to hide her emotions. Meissa can barely ever understand what her godmother is thinking since she is truly a master at hiding her emotions. But today, at this moment, she gets the impression that her aunt is proud of her.
She's not quite sure about the why though.