Disclaimers: I apologize for not writing this in the first chapter but…I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER OR ANY OTHER CHARACTERS FROM J K ROWLING'S BOOKS. (*CRY CRY* OTHERWISE I'D BE A MILLIONARE TOO…) *AHEM* I own Lapis Lazuli Azure Black, so if anyone wants to use her, please e-mail me first, okies??

Salem's Lot

Chapter 6:

Lazul sat haphazardly with one leg propped up so that she could balance her bowl on her knee with one hand while she controlled the TV controller in the other. There wasn't anything one worth watching except maybe the Euro-pop channels. Right now they had something like a teen idol on, but the ones back home had been so bad, she wasn't really in the mood to humor these foreign wannabes.

Her momma was upstairs, even after three whole weeks she was still trying to unload their stuff into these mammoth sized rooms and make it homey. Lazul hadn't bothered to do more than stuff her clothes into the closet (which could have been better named garage) and throw a few of her belongings onto a dusty old vanity table. The house had been handed down to her with all the furnishings, and very few questions. Her momma had made sure everything stayed in her name, even though Lazul thought it would be much more practical to let her deal with all the paperwork. Then again, momma hadn't made it out of high school before she'd had Lazul, so it was only fair she do her part, which included reading between the lines of nasty social workers.

"Lazul, hon? Would ya turn that darn thing down, please? I can't hear myself think!" her momma yelled as she was coming down the stairs, holding a big blue folder set and looking cross. Lazul grinned, slurping a noodle loudly on purpose.

"That's why I keep it turned up."

"Lazul." Momma put one hand on her hip, giving the oh so famous 'don't you make me come over there' look that made Lazul shut off the screen and drop the remote in record time. A pleased smile graced her un-aging face. After all, the woman was only in her early thirties. Momma still had yet to receive a gray hair from stress, which was a surprise with Lazul as her daughter.

"Now then, have you even started going through the list of things you need for school, young lady?" momma held up the blue folder for her to see. Lazul shrugged ceremoniously.

"Nuh-uh." Saying that was better than lying. The last thing she needed was a bowl full of newts or some other crawly creature slithering around in her underwear drawer. Lazul shuddered, remembering the rather warty toad nest she'd found there three months ago, when momma had caught her helping the neighbors harvest their moonshine. It wasn't something she was likely to forget soon.

"Well, let's see what we've got here then…" momma took out some rather new looking parchment, making Lazul's eyebrows rise in curiosity.

"Who sent you that? Auntie?"

Momma shook her head, "No, your school sent it. I feel sorry for the poor delivery bird…"

"Delivery bird…?" Lazul slid down off the counter she'd been sitting on and dropped her bowl into the sink, lightly tracing her fingertips over the faucet. Momma nodded slightly amused.

"Yes, a little barn owl. Oh you would have loved the coloring on this one…not a thing like the 'ole hoot owls we have back home."

"My school, owled me a supply list?" Lazul was beginning to get confused. Was this normal in London? She watched her momma sigh as she started going down the list, taking a cupboard key from around her neck and opening their new storage closet. Miscellaneous items fell out of it, neatly landing on their new table. Perhaps this would have seemed even more unusual to Lazul if she hadn't just been the one guilty of simply willing the dirty dishes away. Her momma frowned slightly.

"Lazul, hon, you know better. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Rule number one!" Lazul sighed, nodding and shoving her hands into her pockets, doing her best to appear as sorry as possible.

"So momma, what exactly is this school? You never did say why you were so eager to be comin' here…"

"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Lazul stood stock still for about three minutes before slamming both hands right onto the tabletop. "School for WHAT?!"

"It's a school for witches, hon." Momma sat down calmly in a chair as she sifted through a black cauldron, and some other items obviously on Lazul's school supply list. This was the first she'd ever heard of such a miraculous thing. For years, Lazul had been raised to believe that she was special, different, and near frightening. She still had nightmares of having her hair burned off, or stones being throne in her direction, or worse, at her mother. Witches simply weren't taken kindly too back home, and learning to live with the fact that you couldn't do anything about it hardened people into believing they were all they had. Alone in their mixed curse and enchantment.

"Okay, school for witches…gotcha. Why didn't we come here before?" she straddled the chair across from her momma, running a hand through her disheveled raven locks, agitated. "Scratch that, we didn't move here because we were broke. Next question: why are we living in this house, why is it entitled to me and not you, and how come you wont let me go by your name like we did back home?" on their transfer forms, momma had written out Lazul's entire name, dropping her mother's maiden name.

"Well, I would answer you hon, but I don't think you'll like it one bit." Lazul watched her momma continue to look anywhere and everywhere but at her eyes. Frowning, she leaned forward, catching her in mid-glance.

"Shoot."

Momma sighed heavily, dropping the parchment onto the table. Somehow this reaction made her look old to Lazul, although she knew momma wasn't a year over 32. "Honey, you know your daddy was a foreign man, and I know you ain't fool enough not to put two and two together."

"I already figured this was his place…why is it mine and not yours, and why didn't we come here before?"

"…things are whole lot more difficult here than they are back home, hon. There're more than just a handful of witches and not all of them are bound by sacred circles, blood and brimstone. You got a wide variety that runs from Glinda the Good Witch to the Wicked Witch of the West, and we got more of them green-skinned hags here than there will ever be back home." Her momma eyed her strangely, almost holding something back. Lazul caught that, but decided not to say anything, fearing momma wouldn't go on and then leave her in the dark about so many more things now.

"So what you're sayin' is I have to go to school here now because it's safer than it woulda been before?" momma nodded.

"It isn't an option, sweetie. You're going and if you don't you're gonna put yourself and whole lotta other poor fools at risk." Another sigh before she continued her tirade. "I know you don't like bein' here…you never knew your daddy, otherwise maybe things would've been a little different…"

Lazul snorted in disgust. "Or maybe not."

"Either way, you have to go. I've already got us scheduled to see your Headmaster next week, noon sharp. I would've gotten us in earlier, but he said he'd serve us lunch if we arrived then. And something about getting' you sorted out into your class…"

"Whatever, momma." Lazul stretched tiredly against her chair, breathing deeply as she took in the strings of lively magic that radiated from this house. "You know I ain't gonna say no." Lazul trotted up the stairs into her room, shutting it tightly behind her before she simply flopped onto her mattress.

She ran a hand through her hair then began covering her face with both hands. Growling, she turned over on her stomach. This was aggravating. Now, instead of simply coming here to dance, she would have to go to a 'witches school'. Learning how to do magic here was completely pointless to Lazul. Back home, you learned it to survive and to conceal yourself. Here, it seemed magic was almost normal, depending on who you talked to. They even separated the non-magic users from the magic users. The term 'muggle' had been something completely unexpected to roll off her momma's tongue. Apparently it wasn't a nice word, unless you used it properly. It was like saying 'nigger' to a black man, in Lazul's opinion. Why come up with word if you knew they weren't going to be nice? All that did was cause problems for the poor confused folk like her who wanted nothing to do with those kinds of politics.

"Well, at least I don't have to hide it so much…" she tried looking on the bright side, rolling back over on her bed to stare at the ceiling before she drifted off into a deep sleep.