Disclaimer: All of which you recognise belongs to JKR. All of which you do not recognise – Lucia, plot etc. – belongs to me. And I will hunt you down and make you listen to Celine Dion for all of eternity, should you steal it, or distribute it elsewhere.
Chapter 3
Her first memories were strange. Mixed. One she somehow knew she wasn't supposed to know of long wavy blond hair and gentle hands. Then some of the other place. With the other children near a forest where the horseman had approached and talked about things she that confused her but still called something in her that seemed very familiar. And the times were the Matron had tried to take away her pendant. She never succeeded, and it always made her howl in pain and her hands redden. Thinking about it, the six-year old touched the heavy amulet around her neck. Maybe the memory of the wavy blond hair had something to do with it?
But other than that she didn't remember much before her family. She looked up at her brother, ten-year old James, completely absorbed by his videogame. Her mother, who wasn't her real mother, was in the kitchen humming while she fixed her children dinner.
Normally Lucia didn't think about her not being the daughter of Mary and Stuart, but today she had woken up from yet another one of those dreams.
She had dreamt about fire and pain, insane, hysterical laughter and more pain, and the dream had changed and everything had been different but something else had happened, something to do with her because she had seen the pendant swinging but what had happened she didn't know. She carefully touched the pendant, to see if it would do anything but nothing happened except the familiar humming and she sighed, sliding down the sofa, and leaving the sitting room. Her head ached painfully and she longed to know why she dreamt those things and what they meant. On her way outside Mary called from the kitchen: 'Where are you going, Lulu?'
How she hated that nickname. Someday she would say something about it. 'Garden, ' she called back, walking outside.
Mary looked after the girl with mixed feelings. She didn't regret adopting her, not at all, it was just. She had her moments, Mary thought. Waking up in the middle of the night, screaming about blood and horror, and then failing to remember anything about it. Claiming that gnomes lived in the garden. That pendant around her neck that wouldn't come off. The strange piercing glance that shouldn't belong to a six-year old.
And then – and this was in Mary's view even stranger – the fact that James had made something levitate the other day by staring at it. Of course after that a flowerpot had burst into flower as Lucia began sneezing with surprise at what James had done. She shook her head and turned her attention towards the cooking. It didn't do her any good to think too much about these strange happenings, and she let them be, hoping that she one day might get an explanation.
Narcissa swore silently to herself as she left Lucius' study, walking back to her own rooms. He just wouldn't give. He wouldn't even consider sending Draco to Durmstrang instead of Hogwarts. And that annoyed her a great deal, since she couldn't have both the children attending the same school, as they would surely figure out their relation sooner or later. They weren't unintelligent, both being descended from the ancient houses of Black and Malfoy.
So now she had to make sure that Lucia would go to another school. Beauxbatons, didn't seem as a bad choice, but it was in France, meaning Lucia had to live in France.
Narcissa almost stopped dead in her track, that deep in thoughts about how that might be accomplished.
