"Careful with the Quaffle!" Blaised yelled at Rebekah as she belted the ball towards him.
"I'm not gonna go easy on you because we're not playing Quidditch!" She said and laughed as he and Draco tried to match her speed. "We need the practice!"
Daphne dared ask who was the fastest of the three, causing them to mount their brooms and start flying around the garden behind Malfoy Manor. It was spacious and left a lot of room for the children to push each other off their brooms and zoom around. They zoomed around the edge while Daphne sat on the upstairs deck and had lunch with Mrs Malfoy.
A Quaffle was thrown between the trio, they needed to know how to play together as a team. Blaise wasn't planning on joining the House team but Draco did and Rebekah already was. Daphne tried to go on a broom but it wasn't going to work out, she fell right off with a thud and a 'Told you so!' aimed at the laughing group.
A sharp array of purple sparks appeared from the decking, the signal for the three racing children to dismount and have lunch.
"Last one to the deck!" Draco screamed out and raced forward with his broom. Blaise and Rebekah exchanged a quick look and followed.
The sky was cloudy with a good chance of rain. When it began, it soaked the trio but it didn't bother them. It didn't bother Rebekah as the winds picked up and she felt her hair loosen from her bun, flowing in a ponytail behind her. She caught up with the boys, neck for neck, but with only a few dozen metres left, anyone could win. An idea quickly sounded in her mind.
With all her energy focused on staying on the broom, she quickly stood on the wood but kept her hand on the very tip. She raised it upwards and gained a few metres in the air. Rebekah sent a smile to the boys as they watched in horror, they didn't know what she was doing. She leapt from her broom seat, still holding the broom clenched in her hand as she fell, and landed on bent legs.
The two boys slowed as they went over the railings of the upstairs deck, the conjured barrier from the rain dried them out as they passed through and landed on the tiles.
"You cheated!"
"No, I didn't," Rebekah retorted and took her seat on the couches on the decking, taking a pastry from a raised plate. "I was on my broom, technically. We never made any rules to follow."
"Still!" Draco said, his voice rising. "You're a cheat and you know it, Rebekah!"
"Oh, hush, Draco, and come and eat your lunch," Mrs Malfoy interrupted and pointed at the food. "Rebekah, you need to be careful. I do not want you to injure yourself before you are at Hogwarts."
"I understand, ma'am," Rebekah said and gulped her water. "But the team and I have practised that move a lot. If I happen to fall off my broom, I can grab onto it with a hand or any other body part. We practised for almost a month straight after the incident with Quirrell."
"The incident with Quirrell? Quirinus Quirrell?" She muttered. "Didn't he teach Muggle Studies and then become the teacher for Defense?"
The children nodded and grimaced, remembering his boring lessons. Rebekah explained what happened to her and how he tried to hurt her and then Emperor. The others butted in when Rebekah couldn't quite remember everything clearly, which wasn't very often but the pain she remembered fuzzed some memories. Rebekah knew and remembered everything important and molecule, never knowing when she would need the information.
On the last day of the summer vacation, Mr and Mrs Malfoy invited everyone's family to join in on a pleasant final meal before the school year. Mr and Mrs Dursley kindly declined and wrote that there was simply too much to do before the school year for Dudley, but they wished her a pleasant year abroad and hoped to see her at Christmas. Rebekah was quite glad by their response, she knew these PureBloods would look down upon her family.
Mr and Mrs Malfoy sat at the heads of the table, wearing immaculate robes of solid black and silver. Down Mr Malfoy's right was Draco, Astoria Greengrass, Mrs Greengrass, Mr Greengrass and Daphne. There was an empty seat between Daphne and Mrs Malfoy, it was also across from Rebekah who sat to Mrs Malfoy's right. Next to Rebekah was Mrs Parkinson, Mr Parkinson, Pansy, then Mrs Zabini and Blaise finishing next to Mr Malfoy's left.
There was a specific way to sit at a table of a Half or PureBlood. Rebekah had read of these traditions in one of the books at Hogwarts, silently thanking herself for the curiosity. The Heir of the House sat to the Head's right while the spouse of the Head sat to their left with any remaining children. The host family had the Head and the spouse at each end of the table. Rebekah had no Head of the family, she was the Head so she was allowed to sit anywhere but Mrs Malfoy insisted for her to sit on her right.
Mr Parkinson tried to question her seat. "Miss Potter, do you know who is at this table?"
"I know whose company I am in, Mr Parkinson," Rebekah said, lifting her chin to look him in the eyes. "Unlike some, I overlook the less pleasant bits and focus on the good ones."
"You are sitting to a Malfoy's right side and you choose to give us that tone?" His face reddened as Pansy slunked down in her chair, obviously embarrassed.
"What tone, Mr Parkinson? The tone I have to use with you PureBloods so you don't ridicule me anymore? I have this at school, I don't need it at a perfectly pleasant meal which we are both guests at. The older years try to intimidate me enough and you don't need to try and do that to me," Rebekah calmly said, her voice clear as crystal.
"You need to respect your elders," He said with a lowered tone. "You are only a young lady and it is unseemly to be seen at a person's right side without family relations."
"Mr Parkinson, why is that?"
"Because an heir always sits to their Head's right. It's to signify their status in the family,"
"I don't see how that applies to me, sir,"
"You are the Potter Heir, are you not?"
She placed her hand onto the table. Her ring glinted in the firelight quite fiercely as her once happy expression dropped to nothing as her emotions turned insignificant.
"I am not the Potter Heir. I am the Head of the Potter line, sir," Rebekah wanted to snort but it wasn't the time. "As you very well know, I am the last Potter alive. Though I won't gain the title of Ladyship until I mature, I am still Miss Rebekah Lilianeth Potter and I won't be spoken to in such a manner while we are both guests at the Malfoy Manor. Mrs Malfoy graciously asked me to sit to her right to take the choice of off my shoulders and so I wouldn't offend one of your traditions unintendedly, but it seems like I still somehow did."
Mr Parkinson looked gobsmacked while his wife tried to stifle her laughter but she looked to Rebekah with a respectful look and smile. Someone had to put her husband in his place because she could not do so while in the polite company of others of the same and higher status as herself.
Mr Parkinson's aggressive and snobby act dropped as a satisfied smile hit his narrow lips. "Well spoken, Miss Potter. Not many would speak for themselves even when they are right and are being ridiculed. You were raised well."
"I've been told that I take after my mother in that respect, I don't like being talked down to."
The rest of the dinner went quickly and quite pleasantly. The adults asked Rebekah questions that steered her into talking about the Stone and Quirrell. She easily spoke of both of them, she processed them completely in the summer and so it didn't faze her that she killed a man by simply touching him.
The next morning, at precisely six o'clock, when the sun started to rise, a long, looming sound of a gong echoed through the manor. Every single curtain of each bedroom opened simultaneously as the lights flickered on. It was the beginning of the school year and so everyone had to be up at the crack of dawn to start to get ready.
Rebekah shimmied on a pair of jeans and pulled her knotted hair into a somewhat respectful bun. She'd brush it after she had breakfast. Emperor followed sleepily behind her, she crooked an arm and Hedwig sat on Rebekah's forearm. Her talons were so long and powerful, yet Hedwig refused to clamp them into Rebekah's fragile skin. The trio of animals and Witch made their way down the stairs and onto the first-floor deck.
This was one of the Malfoys' favourite areas to eat a small meal or snack. It was an upstairs deck area that was connected to the grounds by stone stairs by one side. There was no ceiling, showing the slowly changing dawn sky as the floating lanterns dimmed with each new fragment of natural light. The deck was joined to the house's main sitting room, thick diamond panelled windows separating the two. There was a small fire pit in the decking area, it was warm with flickering blue flames that illuminated the two, L-shaped Davenport sofas that surrounded it. Behind one sofa, there was a table that could fit six people for a meal and it was covered in small amounts of varied breakfast foods.
Rebekah took a small plate of fruits, two pieces of raspberry jam toast and a cup of cold water. She carefully plunked herself onto a sofa and faced the fire pit, Hedwig jumped off of her arm and onto the wood branch that grew out of the flooring suddenly. Since Draco's eagle owl, Corvus, used to take refuge on the deck, the house itself committed the animals it held. The eagle owl suddenly joined Hedwig on the branch but moved to the one next to the other sofa, Hedwig didn't want to share.
"Mornin'," Draco greeted as he, Blaise and Daphne came onto the deck.
"Morning," Rebekah said as she fed a piece of her toast to Hedwig and then a piece to the jealous Corvus. "Did you all sleep well?"
"Fine." "Good." "Alright." They all grumbled and took a seat on the sofas after getting food.
"Good morning, everyone!" Pansy said as she came in, all smiley and happy.
"How are you so happy?" Blaise grumbled and yawned, causing a wave of yawns to infect the other children.
"It's not even half six and you are already all grumpy and miserable," She said, taking a seat next to Rebekah, who stoked the spin of a tiny Emperor. "I'm supposed to be surprised, aren't I?"
"Someone," Rebekah said and gave Emperor a pointed look. "Wouldn't stop trying to kill the bird! I finally got them to settle around midnight and then I couldn't get to sleep for a few hours."
A sudden shout from the inside of the sitting room echoed, startling the sleepy children wide awake. They gave each other a confused look and quickly walked inside. Mr Malfoy was talking coldly to a House-Elf, who trembled and kept their long nose to the ground. Long nose? Rebekah took a good look at the House-Elf. It was Dobby.
"Father is only talking to a House-Elf," Draco said and began to walk out a door. "Let's get our stuff ready before we need to leave."
The group nodded and didn't give Dobby another glance, following Draco out of the room. Rebekah lagged behind to get Hedwig from her branch outside. She tried to walk past Dobby without being noticed but he saw and gasped.
"Why is Rebekah Potter here?!" Dobby yelled, startling Mr Malfoy and Rebekah. She froze as she turned to face the two. "She promised she would be safe!"
"Dobby, I am safe," Rebekah said carefully as Mr Malfoy watched her. "Dobby came to my house on my birthday to warn me of something, of what I do not know. I promised him I would be safe at Hogwarts but he doesn't believe me."
"Miss Potter, go pack your things," Mr Malfoy said. "I'll make sure he doesn't interfere with you again."
"Of course, thank you," Rebekah said as Hedwig hooted. "I can look after myself, Dobby."