Disclaimer and Author's notes:

I do not own Harry Potter or the Harry Potter universe. J.K. Rowling does. I only own this story and the characters I created to write it.

This chapter is pretty much a summary of Marie's life through her Hogwarts graduation. The next chapter will be written less of a narrative, and more like a traditional story.

This is one of my first attempts at writing, and I would be grateful for any advice.

Thank you, and on to the story.

Chapter 1: Birth of a Fallen Angel

Born in a New York hospital, Marie was the daughter of a young American girl and a vacationing British Wizard. The wizard returned home and later died a few years later during an attack during Voldemort's first rise to power. Oddly enough, he was just an innocent caught in the crossfire. It wasn't even a Death Eater that did him in; it was an auror who made a mistake during the battle.

Marie never really learned much about her father beyond that.

Her mother, Laura Smith, could be described as a young muggle girl willing to do whatever it took to take care of her child. The 'what ever it took,' simply put meant just that. She wasn't a good criminal by any means, but she was a fast learner.

Neither Marie nor her mother knew much of the wizarding world, nor if Marie was a witch or not. This didn't stop Marie from trying to find out. She always had her nose in any and every book she could find, and fantasy stories involving magic were always her favorite.

When she was nine, she sat in the backseat of the car while her mom robbed a gas station. It was her first introduction to crime, and she never forgot the adrenaline rush it gave her. Suffice to say that she put aside the fantasy books for a few years and picked up crime, suspense, and spy novels. She quickly began giving advice on what dear old Mom was doing.

One morning when she was ten, the phone rang with a message that the police had found out about her mother's late night jobs and they needed to hide quickly. Unfortunately, five minutes later the front door of the apartment was broken down and her mom was arrested. Marie, however, wasn't found.

It was funny; she backed into a corner and just closed her eyes praying that she wouldn't be seen. There was a tingling sensation that ran down her spine, and when she opened her eyes no one seemed to notice her standing in the corner. She ran as quickly as she could out the emergency door at the back, and down the fire escape.

Two days later, she received a letter saying she was a witch, and that there was a school named Hogwarts that wanted to teach her. Apparently it was where her dad had gone to school, and as his child she was permitted to attend there if she wanted. Both she and her mom were ecstatic. An education, her inheriting the little money that dad had saved in some strange bank overseas, the ability to leave American soil before the prosecutors could question her about her mom…

Both agreed that the last reason was a deciding factor. Marie loved her mom, and would have lied in a heartbeat, but her mom didn't want her daughter to be a criminal. Well, more of a criminal anyways. Shoplifting isn't really that bad of a crime is it? After all, one needed to eat.

Two weeks later, she walked into a new world and a new life.

A week after that, she was a Ravenclaw. Surprisingly for her, this wrinkled old hat they put on her head had told her that she wasn't ambitious enough to be a Slytherin, but her mind was always thirsting for knowledge.

"Really, what nerve! Telling me I'm not ambitious."

Marie stormed into the Ravenclaw common room. Several of the other students looked a bit taken back by the fact that this new first year had actually been mad at the Sorting Hat.

"Okay, so I love to read. Okay, so I like learning things. But not ambitious enough? Come on! I'm probably ten times more ambitious than all of those arrogant little bastards put together!"

Seeing one of the older girls staring at her Marie stopped for a moment. "What?"

A short explanation about the rules concerning the school and house later, Marie went to her new room. It wasn't as though she was mad about being put in Ravenclaw. Truth is she wanted to be here anyways. It was just how offhandedly the hat had made that comment. It could have been more polite.

Her new roommates were nice. One seemed to love the idea about magic and wanted to be the best in her year, the other just seemed lost. Both however had the most amusing look on their faces when Marie had pulled out her dad's old trunk, the kind that defied the laws of physics and held far more than should ever be possible. Now it wasn't the trunk that did it, these other girls were used to magical trunks, having grown up in wizard families. No, it was the books she started pulling out.

"What, never seen a book before?"

Marie was loving this. Mary had that deer in headlights look, while Silvia just looked on in awe.

"How… Where… What… Books... Huh?"

Marie couldn't help it, she started laughing. After a few seconds the other two girls looked at each other's faces and joined her.

"I'm sorry. I just love doing that to new people I meet. Can you imagine the look on someone's face when a six year old pulls out this and starts reading it in class?"

She held up War and Peace. The resulting images put all three girls back into uncontrollable laughter.

The next day, they discovered the Library. She had to actually be dragged out kicking and screaming.

"No!!! Who needs classes, I want to stay and read!!!"

Yes, Marie loved books. She just couldn't understand what a "restricted section" was all about. Why would anyone want to restrict access to books? After all, wasn't that why they were in the library – to be read?

The older, and rarer the book, the more she wanted to have it. The more forbidden and illegal the book, the more she wanted to read it. This was a lesson neither her new friends nor classmates learned though. All they knew was that she was always reading, and beyond that she did nothing.

Now, if it were two things that bothered both her professors and classmates alike it was her grades and school equipment. First, she was barely passing in her classes. She was always reading, but never bothered to put any work into anything.

As for why her school equipment got on people's nerves, well just imagine the looks on the faces of those who knew next to nothing about muggles when she pulled out a pen and began taking notes with it rather than using a quill. Also imagine that she used notebooks, binders, and pads of paper rather than sheets of parchment.

Now imagine the look on the face of a certain Professor Snape as she took notes in his class after loosing points for not having a 'proper' writing utensil and no ink well for her 'stick' that first week.

Yeah, that was definitely one of the best moments of her life at Hogwarts.

Over the next few years she did put the knowledge she was reading about to good use, just not in classes. The only subjects she seemed to care about were Charms, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes. All three were put to good use in her fourth year when she began stealing books from the Library at night using an invisibility spell she had learned. Granted she couldn't keep it up for long, but she just needed it to get past the professors, Mr. Filch and his annoying cat, Mrs. Norris. The books of course were always put back, and since she seemingly never caused any problems during the day no one thought of her as a suspect.

Now, why did she steal the books? Well, apparently by using very old techniques discussed in some of the more advanced Arithmancy books, combining them with some of the older methods of creating wards and enchantments by using magic circles and runes, and then a lot of imagination, hard work, determination, and no problems with breaking those pesky things called laws, you could break the copy write spells on the books and make duplicates. Granted most of the magical properties of the books weren't transferred in the duplication process, but most of that was just there to keep certain people from reading them. Those that used the magic for more, well, it just took longer and more work. After that, she just put the duplicates in her trunk and took them with her at the end of the year. She had quickly mastered the shrinking charm! She could actually now carry, well drag, her growing personal library home.

But what was even more astounding was that even though at the time she didn't understand how unique what she was doing with magic at the time was, she had accidentally recreated a form of magic that most of the world ignored since the creation of the wand. She found that magic wasn't just about wands and spells, but it was an art that had long since faded into the past. An art all about using the world and universe around you in combination with you own will, to do things beyond the understanding of science. Since the wand made magic easier, this practice of magic as an art had been lost. Since Marie wasn't very powerful compared to her peers, this concept became her concept as to what magic was all about.

Whether or not anyone suspected her in later years became a moot point since no one ever mentioned it. And her foster parents, squibs, who decided raising orphaned children for the magical community, never really asked. They just made sure she was taken care of and somewhat happy. Squib? Oh, non-magical child born into a wizarding family. Regrettably, more common than one would think or desire.

Suffice to say by the time she graduated from Hogwarts, Marie had a copy of most, if not every, book in the school (even those in the Restricted Section), and just for spite had stolen several of Professor Snape's more expensive potions. She was after all a thief; it's what thieves do. At least that was how she looked at it.

That evening after the graduation ceremony Madame Pince, the Librarian, discovered a small letter on her desk:

"Thanks for the books, I will treasure them always.

Seriph"

At the bottom of the letter was an image of a black cross with gold outlines of a pair of wings coming from it.

Several spells confirmed that the books in the Library were authentic, but that someone had made duplicates of them. How was a mystery, but it would quickly be forgotten in the hustle of preparing for the next year.

For the world though, it would be remembered as the day a child – no, a young woman, said hello to the world that was welcoming her. Marie had just decided the path her life would take. By day she would be a research assistant to the Ministry, specializing in ward design and theory. By night she would play the role her mother had unknowingly shaped her for so many years before. She would play it, and embrace the world that it offered.

That day a fallen angel had spread her wings. Seriph was born.

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