~* This story was complied by Din and myself. We're currently working on it so if updates slow down just bear with us. -Risma*~

Disclaimer: Harry Potter books and characters belong to J. K. Rowling. If you are planning on suing me for my sad attempt you're wasting your time. P.S. This disclaimer will be for the whole story.

Under the Greatest Shadow

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Chapter One

It's never easy living up to the expectations of your parents. It's as if they just create you in order to push you in all the directions they went through to show you that life isn't easy. Then when that earth shattering decision that they had to choose is laid out before you, they drop-kick you down the alternative route that they took, just to see what they would have achieved if they had 'the opportunities' or 'the guidance' that we supposedly have these days.

Yes, it's never easy. Especially when you parents are dead and their best friends are the ones kicking you in their absence.

This is how I ended up in Uncle Remus' shabby sitting room with a large envelope in my hands and three fully-fledged auroras watching me intently. "We'll support your decision no matter what you choose," Uncle Remus gently patted my hand from across the table. His sad amber eyes competed against his supportive smile, but then, Uncle Remus was confusing at the best of times.

I turned the envelope over for the umpteenth time, praying that my name was not on the front of it. But yet again the cursive green scrawl glinted up at me as if teasing me. I knew what it contained. Everybody had been whispering about this since I first saw daylight. A letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

I wanted to burn it.

"Oh, will you open it already?!" Tonks yelled, slamming the plate of dancing ginger-bread trolls on the coffee table. Her hair suddenly turned dazzling blonde, a sure sign that I was grating her nerves.

"I don't know if I want to think about it just yet," I faked a sigh and grinned inwardly as Tonks stormed into the kitchen. I loved to irritate her and watch her reactions play out in her expressions. Metamorphmagi will never be professional poker players. "I like it here. Boarding school doesn't sound so appealing."

The sound of breaking glass could be heard all through the house and she stormed right back into the room. "Boarding school! It's not just some run-of-the-mill boarding school!" Tonks sputtered. I was sure she was going to wring my neck until Uncle Remus pulled her down into the thread bare chair beside him.

"Hogwarts isn't you typical boarding school. You'll have fun," Ginny called from the behind the Daily ProphetI, recrossing her long pale legs.

"Yeah well a mountain troll trying to decapitate me while I'm on the loo, isn't my idea of fun." I threw the letter on the table.

"You father would be turning in his grave," Ginny chuckled and lower the paper. Of the surviving auroras, Ginny was the youngest but far from the least experienced. The Weasley family were all part of the Order in one way. However only she and her brother Charlie were still alive but where he had disappeared to, no one knew for sure. Ginny didn't want to hide and that's what I always admired about her.

I grabbed a ginger-bread troll doing a jig and bit his leg off. His current eyes widened in shock and he began pulling his lolly buttons off and hitting me in the nose. "Geroff!" I groaned and snapped off his head. That's the problem with magic folk, nothing is as it seems and it really bugs me.

Tonks smiled at me, her hair turning back to her favourite magenta. "You've got a few weeks to make up your mind," she said trying to cheer me up. That's all I needed, her showing a depth of maturity. I found all three faces staring at me in that disgusting sincere way, that I can only assume my parents would give if they bothered to stay alive. I felt stupid.

"I don't need a few weeks. I'm not going," I left them to bicker it out behind my bedroom door.

*****

I quite liked my room. Bland, peeling paint, cockroaches in the corner. It had that spartan charm that you would only find in an attic, or a lunatic ward. A chair near the hole in the wall, where the window used to be; a wooden desk with one leg propped up with an invisible book and the lumpy mattress on a rusting cast-iron bed. I loved this bed. It has a certain smell, like lighter fluid and aftershave. Smelled like rebellion.

When I first moved in, Uncle Remus showed me the guest bedroom. It had new yellow paint, a white wardrobe, lace curtains and a vase of daisies to bright up the iridescent room. He had spent a lot of effort and money on that little girl's room. But I was no little girl. I turned to him and said; "You gotta be joking." He was flabbergasted. Mind you, a five year old rolling her eyes at you can have that effect on a grown wizard.

"I can change the colour," he shrugged, pulling out his wand. I 'tsked' at his solution.

"Can I sleep somewhere else?" I asked pushing open the door directly across the hall.

And so I found Sirius' room and I had slept there ever since.

"Charlotte?" So they had sent Uncle Remus to try convince me to reconsider. Typical. "Can I come in?"

I slumped back on the bed. "It's a free country." I never really understood the concept of that saying. If you were living in these times you wouldn't either.

He slowly opened the door and paused. It was some ritual he always performed; respect for the dead or something. His fingers gripped the door frame and he would stare blankly out the hole in the wall.

"Have they left?" I asked. Usually I let him have his few moments but not today. He should be focused on me for a change.

"Yes," he whispered. "Yes, they've gone home." I felt the springs move as he sat by my feet. "You're scared, aren't you."

It was a statement rather than a question. He always seemed to have some insight with my psyche. "No. I just don't see the point."

"Of what? Going to school?"

"Going to that school. Learning magic. I've survived so far without using it. Most normal human beings don't require it at all. So why should I?"

He smiled condescendingly at me. "Magic is a great gift and those blessed with this ability can use it towards a greater good."

I sat up and glared at him. "If magic is so wonderful then what has it done for you? It doesn't cure lycanthropy. It doesn't make you rich. It doesn't get you a half descent job-"

"That's only because some people won't employ-"

"And if you use it to harm certain members of the ministry, you're classed as a Death Eater!"

Okay, so I'd gone too far. This dejected loveable man had put a roof over my head when others won't go anywhere near me. He begged to get me into a public school. He had starved so I could get a second helping. He had put up with my spoilt obnoxious behavior for the past six years. I at least owed him the truth.

"You're right. I'm scared."

He held out his hands and I climbed into his lap. For a skinny old man, he sure had the safest hugs. "You've got nothing to be scared of. You're a beautiful, courageous, brilliant lady."

"Self-tying shoe-laces," I reminded him.

"Well not everyone can do everything," he whispered, stroking my hair.

"You try telling that to the millions of fans of the All-Mighty-Boy-Who-Lived."

He pushed me away to look me in the eye. I always felt vulnerable when he did this, as if he'd switched to wolf night vision and could see me pulse quickening.

"Charlotte, you are not you father nor your mother. You are someone else entirely. Don't ever forget that," he growled.

"Fine, fine. Just quit staring at me." I tried to twist out of his grip before he made me say something I'd really regret.

"So, you're going to give Hogwarts a try?"

"Yes, Uncle Remus," I groaned.

"Good. Dinner's ready, so go wash up," and he pushed me out the door, towards the bathroom. It was then that it finally clicked what I had just promised him. Five years of failing magic.

Damn him.