A/N Just a couple of things before we begin – the 1st sentence in this chapter is written in Italian to give the effect that the father & daughter are conversing in said language. Though it's being written in English (with the exception of the 1st sentence) – it is understood to be spoken in Italian. But my readers are so smart that they'll have already figured that out! (winks)
Also… suggestion: if you enjoy putting some music to your reading – I find that during the latter part of the chapter, when you find our main character in the field, the song from An American Werewolf in Paris, Mouth, works nicely. As does several selections from the Queen of the Damned soundtrack (none of which, movies or songs, belong to me). Kind of gives it that little something extra!
Disclaimer: I do not own anything HP affiliated. Such a shame, but, alas, all references to magic or anything HP related, belong to the genius, J.K. Rowling.
Uno
"Narrare me nuovamente Papa." She pleaded.
"I've already told you about how wonderful and beautiful your mother was twice tonight Gianna. I'm an old man and it's far past my bedtime."
"You're not old." Gianna said earnestly as she rested her chin on the palm of her hand. She looked with admiration upon her father who was gently rocking back and forth in his high-backed, wooden rocking chair, coincidentally making himself look more like an old man than he did when he was working furiously in his laboratory. The contrast was striking. "And you don't have a bedtime." She added teasingly.
He laughed and the creases at the corners of his dark brown eyes crinkled as he looked at his daughter. "But you on the other hand do." He said with a smile.
"Aw, but Papa… I'm on holiday! I can sleep as long as I want tomorrow!" she whined, causing the mature fifteen year old façade she'd been presenting since returning home from school a week ago to disappear.
"Unfortunately, tomorrow, you can't!" he said, his arthritic joints creaking and cracking as he pushed himself up out of the rocking chair. He shuffled for the first few steps before getting his limber stride back. "We have a long day of housework ahead of us." He said, sounding far too happy to be discussing cleaning.
"Housework?" Gianna asked in disgust, without so much as an attempt of hiding her true feelings about housework and cleaning.
"Yes, housework!" he repeated.
"Why are we doing housework?" she asked, following him through their house as he extinguished the lights as he went with his put-outer.
"So many reasons." He said, sounding vague and comically ominous.
"Like what?" she pressed on with her line of questioning.
"Well…" he said, sounding weary as he snuffed out the last candle by hand. "Your uncle and cousin will be arriving tomorrow evening to stay for a few days."
"What? No!" she protested. "If they're coming to stay, then that means that you're going away again, aren't you?"
"I'm afraid so, my dear." He said, sounding genuinely sorry about the matter.
"Where? For how long?" she asked, her feet rooted to the spot at the bottom of the stairs her father was slowly climbing.
"To England… and only for a day or two."
Gianna seemed to have hit a wall. Her father waited for another string of questions to begin as he reached the landing. He heard her footsteps begin to follow him, slowly trudging up the wooden staircase, her mood evident by the thumps and slight dragging that sounded in the stairway.
"Why do you have to go to England?" she said as she also reached the landing, where they would part ways to go to their respective sleeping quarters.
He turned to face her. "That brings me to the other reason for tomorrow's task of cleaning up…"
"Which is?" she cued him.
"That I believe that we will soon be having a tenant in the guest house again."
"A tenant? Who'd be staying with us? No one's stayed there in years! Not since the last time you took an-" she broke off, her eyebrows snapping together instantly.
"Apprentice." He finished her sentence and didn't wait for a reaction. "Now, enough questions!" he said, still laughing a bit. "You've always been so inquisitive… perhaps that's why you're the most intelligent fifteen year old girl that I know."
"I'm the only fifteen year old girl that you know." She said grumpily.
"Very true indeed." He said, nodding and looking as though he was only just considering the matter for the first time and finding that the results were quite astonishing. "Thereby making you my favorite fifteen year old girl by a landslide."
"Papa…" she said sulkily.
The grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs chose that moment to chime eleven o'clock.
"Ah!" he raised his hand and held up one finger as though to say 'hark!'. "I think that's a sign that it is the end of the question and answer session of our program… and time for bed!" he said happily. One of the only things that made him truly happy in life, other than Potions, alchemy and his daughter, was sleeping. Naptime and bedtime were two of his favorite times of the day, which he felt necessary to point out whenever there was a lapse in conversation.
"I don't believe in signs." Gianna said skeptically.
"Well… perhaps you should start!" he said wisely, leaning over to kiss her on the forehead.
She sniffed in response. Unlike her father, who always took stock in superstitions and such, Gianna was a realist. Or at least, she liked to consider herself a realist, in this particular instance, as she hardly believed that the clock chiming eleven was reason to be sent to bed. After all, it had chimed ten o'clock just an hour before and that hadn't been a 'sign' to go to bed.
"I love you." he said.
"Me more." She replied, sounding slightly more cheerful.
"Me most." He said back in a singsong voice.
She stifled a small laugh and headed off to her bedroom.
…
After having had a full night's sleep, Gianna awoke feeling slightly more optimistic than she had the previous evening. Her father had always told her that, 'Things always seem more terrible and dramatic at night, when you are tired and when even the sun has hidden itself away. In the morning, when you are rested, refreshed and the sun is shining… things tend to seem a bit less hopeless.' And though, she differed in opinion with him on many issues, this, was not one of them. Though she would never admit that to him.
She took a shower and dressed. She sat at her vanity and brushed out her long, chocolate colored hair. It hung limply, well below her shoulders. She surveyed it for several moments, watching an occasional drip of water fall from one of the ends and splash on the hardwood floor. This was the obnoxious thing about not being old enough to use magic while being away from school. Now, if she'd been sitting in her dormitory, just having showered and staring at this soaking wet mop of hair, she would've simply pointed her wand at it and made it dry itself instantly.
There, however, was the problem. For, she was not at school. And she certainly didn't fancy a letter of reprimand from said institution, much less a lengthy scolding from her father. She could hear it now as though a prerecorded copy of it had just begun in her head. 'There will come a day when you'll be old enough to use magic outside of school, but with that day will come all sorts of responsibilities that go along with that privilege. You should enjoy your youth and your innocence while you do not have the burdens of responsibility and duty to hamper it.'
Needless to say, they'd had this discussion numerous times. And frankly, it was just easier to be temporarily disgruntled about these minor things, such as wet hair (which could've been easily solved with a bit of magic), rather than begin this all too familiar conversation.
She suppressed one last fleeting urge to magic her hair dry before descending the stairway into the foyer. She found her father sipping a cup of coffee in the kitchen and reading his copy of The Daily Prophet, as per his usual static morning routine.
After a modest breakfast (breakfast was not the celebrated meal of the day in their household, for no good reason, other than it simply wasn't), he would cross the yard to a long, low, one story, ivy-covered building which housed his laboratory. He would bustle about, dabbling with miscellaneous potions which were brewing in cauldrons of all shapes and sizes, each holding a new or different brew he was trying to improve upon, or those which he was simply replenishing his stocks of.
Once this, seemingly haphazard, dabbling concluded, he would return to the house for lunch (which was slightly more fulfilling and thus, more enjoyable than breakfast). After this period was complete, it was the ever popular naptime, which lasted anywhere from a half hour to two hours, dependant on the length and difficulty of the dabbling in the lab and what the results had yielded.
When naptime had been satisfactorily completed, it was time to begin preparations for dinner (the Christmas of all mealtimes), which was almost always quite an event and lasted for up to several hours. But Gianna never minded much with helping prepare this meal, because it gave her an opportunity for conversation with her father as well as the chance to pick up cooking tips; for her father was quite the chef, at least in her eyes.
After dinner, and the cleaning up process that was simply unavoidable, he would settle down in his rocking chair and read. His selection of books differed greatly, from the classics, such as Shakespeare, to philosophy, but most often, his material of choice was something potions related, though, admittedly, he had hundreds of choices which fell under the "potions" category.
When the clock struck eleven, or thereabout, came the cue for bedtime. And such concluded most of Orlando Borghese's days.
Gianna plopped down across from her father at the table and helped herself to a piece of dry toast, which was all she could find the appetite for, not being a breakfast eater. He lowered his paper a quarter of an inch, just enough to survey her over top of it.
"Good morning." He said, sounding cheery and good-natured as usual.
"Good would have been eleven o'clock, rather than eight." She said, in mock grumpiness.
He snickered and lifted the paper up to its proper height. He rustled it about a bit. There was a comfortable silence, in which Gianna ate her toast and her father silently read the paper.
"Hm…" he said, sounding concerned.
"What is it?" Gianna asked around a mouthful of toast.
"Lorenzo De Luca has gone missing." He replied in disbelief.
Even Gianna and her inquisitive nature couldn't come up with an immediate response or question in regards to this startling news. Lorenzo De Luca was their neighbor. Not exceptionally close, geographically, perhaps a mile or so away, but in an area as sparse and which was generally regarded as 'safe' as theirs, this was astonishing news indeed.
Gianna swallowed hastily causing her to nearly choke on the dry, crunchy bread. "But… didn't you tell me that someone else, in the next town had disappeared only a month before I came home?"
"Yes… I did." He said, not lowering the paper, but sounding more worried by the minute.
"Papa, what do you think is going on? I mean… these almost certainly have to be related, don't you think?" she asked eagerly in a dark voice and leaning forward. There was a part of her, that she didn't particularly like to acknowledge, that found danger strangely exciting. The need for vigilance had always seemed somewhat appealing to her, though, she was never sure why. She remembered having had a lecture during primary school about 'stranger danger' and being on some sort of a quasi sugar high for the rest of the day while talking animatedly to her friends about the appropriate actions to take if ever confronted by a 'stranger'.
"I'm not sure what I think, Gianna." He said, lowering the paper slowly and stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Though, I think we can rule out anymore nighttime wanderings around the garden, or anywhere else for that matter." He said matter-of-factly.
He'd expected her to argue, for she certainly did like to be outside in the sultry night air, particularly at dusk and the time shortly thereafter. He was surprised, however, when she did not protest. Exactly the opposite in fact.
"I think you're right Papa. If these two disappearances are related… then we need to be really careful. I mean, it could be us next, couldn't it?" she said more enthusiastically than she'd meant it to sound, pouring herself a cup of tea.
He frowned at her. "Yes, I suppose it could. Though, I should say I'd feel much better about your agreement to this, had you not said it with such vigor. We certainly should be careful. I don't want you looking for trouble, Gianna. And that means that when I say it is time to come inside, or go to bed… that you should do as I say, without hesitation."
"I said I thought you were right…" she said, standoffishly.
"I heard what you said. I also heard the note of excitement in your voice when you said it." He said wisely.
Gianna frowned. She hadn't thought that the bit of excitement that had flared up in her had been that obvious.
"And no more sitting on the roof." He said, refilling his coffee cup. He knew as well as Gianna did that she fancied sitting on the roof after bedtime. There wasn't much to look at, other than the small stream which wound its way through the valley in back of their house and the field on the other side, but that hadn't yet stopped her from clambering out her window once she heard her father's snores (which now could have easily been feigned snores).
"I haven't-" she started to argue, but he cut her off.
"I can hear you thumping around up there Gianna. Hearing hasn't completely abandoned this old man yet." He said, doing a bad job of suppressing a flicker of a smile.
"Fine." She said, trying to keep her tone even and as far from argumentative as possible to avoid another row.
After another five minutes spent in, slightly less comfortable silence, her father spoke up.
"Well, let's get started with the guest house then, shall we?" he said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them back and forth as though he was sitting down to unwrap his Christmas presents.
And together, they set off for the abandoned cottage, across the yard and next to his laboratory.
Some three hours later, they emerged, covered in dust and cobwebs. They'd officially brought it back to the land of the living. Or at least, the land of livable. The cobwebs had been swept down (and consequently, reattached themselves to Gianna's clothes and hair), the dust had been wiped off of surfaces, the floor scrubbed and the lavatory completely sterilized and polished. They'd even cleaned out the fireplace, which still held ashes and the remains of the charcoaled logs left there by the previous tenant. The only thing that was left to do was to put fresh linens in the house, including sheets for the small single bed, and towels, washcloths and a bathmat. These 'minor details', would be left until after lunch and a much needed nap.
Gianna wasn't feeling particularly in the mood for a nap, so as her father started up 'those golden stairs' as he so often fondly referred to them as, she began the task of tackling the linens. She didn't mind doing laundry much. They did them the old fashioned way, with a washboard and basin. It gave her the opportunity to take out some of her frustrations by vigorously dragging the sheets, towels, or shirts up and down over the ribbed surface of the wooden washboard. It always left her feeling strangely smug and satisfied, as though she'd just gotten away with punishing them severely, without anyone being the wiser.
Once everything had been thoroughly washed, she gathered up the sheets and blankets for the bed, thinking that a few hours spent hanging on the clothesline in the afternoon breeze would make them quite pleasant for sleeping, even though she had no idea who would have the pleasure of sleeping in them. She stowed them in a reed basket along with her plastic container of wooden clothespins and carried them out to the line, which was just next to the patch of woods and her father's laboratory.
The breeze was warm and pleasant as the sun began to sink just a bit lower into the sky, making it around three o'clock, she guessed. She hummed mindlessly to herself as she strung up the sheets, taking care that they would not blow away as soon as she turned their back (as they were likely to do… just out of spite).
Just as she was securing the last clothespin on the fitted sheet, a twig snapped. Her senses, which were especially acute after that morning's news Signore De Luca's disappearance were suddenly at attention. Her eyes snapped to the right, where the noise had come from. Her hand had darted to her pocket out of habit. But, alas… she'd left her wand in the house. 'Idiot girl', she thought.
Gianna stared at the spot for… she didn't for know how long. It could've been seconds… or hours. She wasn't sure. But nothing happened. It could've just been a squirrel. Or it could've been whoever was responsible for all of the rumored disappearances. She began to back slowly toward the house, never taking her eyes from the spot. She wasn't sure if she was overreacting, or not… but her father had told her that she should exercise caution, hadn't he?
She was nearly back to the door and could almost feel the sidewalk about to appear under her feet, when suddenly from just behind her an earsplitting CRACK!
Gianna yelped and spun around, her legs crumpling beneath her in surprise. For a moment, she'd thought it had been someone apparating.
"Ciao Gianna!" said her cousin Isabella, who was staring down at her, waving genially, her hand still on the doorknob of the heavy wooden back door to the house.
"You scared me half to death." Gianna said from the ground, making no attempt to get up just yet; the embarrassment alone had been enough to ground her for several long minutes.
"Awfully jumpy aren't we?" said her uncle in his dignified voice, turning his head slightly to make her become more upright in his eyes.
"Yeah, well… a lot's been going on." She said grumpily, pushing herself into a sitting position. She'd never cared much for her father's brother.
Her father, Orlando and his brother Raul had been the sons of a statesman. They had come from a very wealthy and prestigious family. Both boys were being groomed to become statesmen, like their father. Not only were they well mannered, but they were also well versed in science, music, philosophy and the arts. Everything seemed to have been perfectly positioned to produce two prominent, young, successful members of society.
Everything was perfectly positioned, until that fateful day when an owl swooped right in the dining room window. It landed with a crash on the breakfast table, sending feathers flying everywhere, knocking over the candelabra and setting the immaculate, white table cloth on fire. After the maid had shooed the large, fluffy bird out the window with her broomstick, and dumped the water from the flower vase onto the table, thus extinguishing the fire, the letter was discovered.
The letter was the likes of which a family, such as the Borgheses, had never seen before. In a parchment envelope, sealed with a wax crest, was a letter in slanted scrawl which read as follows:
Dear Signore Borghese,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term beings on September 1st. We await your owl by no later than July 31.
Sincerely,
Deputy Headmaster
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
The arrival of this owl and the news it carried proved to be more than detrimental to Orlando's stature within the Borghese household. Being the older of the two sons and yet, somehow forever in his brother's shadow, Orlando had taken the back seat to his younger, more enthusiastic brother with grace and an undying sense of relief. His passion had never been for politics or hobnobbing with socialities and members of the government. He harbored a secret desire to learn more about chemistry and the rumored art of alchemy. He'd read about it of course, while studying the renassaince era, but it was considered to be a myth, a legend, and who's followers never amounted to anything more than social outcasts.
When he decided to reply to the notorious letter, so began the rift between Orlando and his family. He attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry every year in the fall, leaving his family to make his excuses, which became more difficult every year. They finally settled on telling anyone who asked that he was attending a boarding school in England. Which was partially true… at least the part about England was.
After his graduation from Hogwarts and with Raul poised to succeed their father as the head of the household and statesman, Orlando never felt it necessary to return to his childhood home. And so he began an apprenticeship with a wizened old Alchemist, by the name of Nicholas Flammel, set up by the Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore. Flammel, along with the aide of Dumbledore, was the only known maker of the Sorcerer's Stone; a stone capable of producing the Elixer of Life and the ability to turn metal into pure gold.
To this day, Orlando was reknowned as the protégé of Nicholas Flammel and, in his own right, quite successful. He set up shop in a rural area outside of Florence (which was far removed from his family's homestead which was Rome) and lived there to this very day, making a relatively good living on the money he made, supplying area apothecaries with Potions for their stocks.
And to this day, his brother, Raul, still treated him as an outcast; the boy who chose a life of exile, as far as he was concerned, rather than the path to fortune and fame. While the rest of their family had excommunicated Orlando completely, Raul still seemed to pop in from time to time, if for no other reason, to gloat a bit about his wealth and stature and to sniff indignantly at the rustic villa that Orlando and his daughter lived in.
And that is why Gianna disliked him so greatly. Her father was a genius in her eyes and didn't deserve the treatment he received from his younger brother just because he was a wizard. Not to mention, the trait of magic had been passed on to Gianna herself, which was reason enough to dislike her only uncle.
"Where is your father?" he asked, looking around the overgrown yard, which was covered in dandelions and other random flowers and weeds. His gaze wandered in the general direction of the laboratory.
"He's asleep." Gianna replied, finally clambering to her feet and dusting herself off.
And, privately, Gianna preferred it that way. If her father stayed asleep for another hour, her uncle might get tired of waiting around and decide to leave. This would be a dual purpose victory; she and her father would be rid of his horrid brother and his overlarge head, and it would force her father to not go to England later that evening.
But her father chose that particular moment to undermine her and completely foil her plan, by appearing at the back door.
"Raul." He said, stepping out into the sunshine, his silvery black hair glistening in the sunshine and showing his age. He extended his hand which Raul reluctantly accepted and shook it impersonally.
"Orlando." He said brusquely, nodding. His hair, in contrast to his older brother, had not yet begun to turn gray. It remained a striking shade of jet black and was swept back into a neat ponytail at the base of his neck.
"And Isabella too! It must be my lucky day!" Orlando said, cupping Isabella's cheeks in his leathery hands and kissing her gently on the forehead.
"Ciao zio!" she said, smiling as her uncle fawned over her.
Gianna rolled her dark eyes and smirked.
"Come inside and have something to drink. You must be exhausted after your journey." Orlando said jovially, waving his arm and beckoning his brother and niece inside.
"Father, could Gianna and I go pick wildflowers in the valley?" she asked, not bothering to clear this with her cousin.
"Certainly. Don't be long." Raul said, following his brother into the house.
"Let's go!" Isabella said eagerly, pulling on her older cousin's hand.
"Wait." Gianna said, detangling herself from her cousin, who was seven years her junior (making her eight years old). She trudged inside the house and retrieved her leather bound book, Advanced Potions Making. Before she exited the house, another thought occurred to her. Her wand. With all this talk about disappearances of neighbors… well, one could just never be too prepared.
While most people could pick an armful of wildflowers in twenty minutes, Isabella, who was about as choosy as one could be, for being eight years old, could drag this out for hours. And today was no exception. Privately, Gianna suspected a mild case of A.D.D.
While Isabella skipped around the field, Gianna took it upon herself to settle down on a particularly squishy patch of grass, where she could stick her bare feet into the stream and read her book for what seemed like the 700th time.
The words started to become fuzzy in the afternoon heat as she stared at them and eventually, her eyes stopped moving back and forth across the page. She really should've taken her father's advice and had that nap. She stifled a yawn and watched Isabella skipping and singing loudly and terribly off key to some song she'd clearly learned at school; for it had something to do with her multiplication tables. She stopped, stooped down, picked a sprig of Queen Anne's Lace, and examined it carefully before tossing it over her shoulder, apparently finding it to be somehow unworthy of her meager bundle of other selections. A brilliant orange Monarch butterfly flitted past, there was a gentle breeze and the birds were chirping ever so softly. It was almost unnaturally peaceful.
Isabella's singsong voice began to fade until it seemed as though she'd grown tired of singing or she'd given up the song about multiplication tables as a bad job. But no… Gianna looked around. She must've dozed off, for it was now dusk… and Isabella was nowhere to be found.
"Isabella?" Gianna called, sitting up suddenly. If she lost her eight year old cousin, she'd never live it down. Never mind living it down, her uncle would murder her.
It was that time in the evening where the sun had gone down and the moon was just beginning to replace it. The stars were scattered over a velvety, deep, navy sky that was slowly fading to black. This was usually her favorite time of evening, but something was off. It was dusk, her cousin was missing and her father hadn't yet come looking for them. So much for his lecture earlier that day.
"Isabella?" she called again, getting to her feet. She slipped on the bank and her foot plunged into the stream. She swore loudly.
She had a bad feeling. She couldn't exactly place it, but something wasn't right. The birds had stopped singing completely. There were no small animals in the field. Nothing moved. It seemed that even the wind was cowed into stillness. Gianna rubbed her eyes vigorously and looked around wildly, trying to make them adjust to the darkness. Every now and again, a firefly would light up, its bright yellow bulb flickering as it floated around the field.
She swore again, louder this time. "Isabella?!" she called, the quake in her voice audible as it echoed through the valley.
There was a small giggle from somewhere on the other side of the stream.
"Isabella, is that you?" Gianna asked, squinting.
"Aw… you found me!" Isabella said, sounding thoroughly disappointed.
"That is so not funny. I thought you'd gotten lost." Gianna said, exasperated.
"You fell asleep a while ago… I caught fireflies for a while, but they all got away. Then I heard you stir… so I decided to hide and see if you could find me!" she said happily as she stood up and let Gianna see her properly.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
"Want to see my bouquet?" Isabella asked, holding out a large bundle of wildflowers for Gianna to see.
But Gianna's eyes were no longer on her cousin. Something was moving behind her. Something large and furry had just crept out of the woods. It was slinking along the tree line. Its head turned slightly to the side and the moonlight caught its yellow eyes. They glinted maliciously in the light shed by the full moon.
'It can't be… not here.' Gianna thought in horror.
"Isabella." Gianna said, in a voice, barely above a whisper. "Come over to me. Slowly. Don't make any noise." She instructed, never taking her eyes off of the hulking figure of the wolf that was now making its way stealthily down the hill towards them. Whether or not it had spotted them just yet was hard to say. Either it hadn't, or it was simply biding it's time.
"Why?" Isabella asked, shrugging her shoulders and her question rang out loudly bouncing off the hills and magnifying. She was facing Gianna. Her back was toward the animal. She had no idea what was about to happen.
Gianna was about to reply when the wolf's eyes darted toward them and it stopped as though it had been frozen to the spot. Now there was another distinct feature that Gianna was able to see, even despite the growing darkness; long, razor sharp, white fangs. This was no ordinary wolf. Something dripped from the corner of its mouth, which was now curled into a snarl. It could've been slobber… or it could've been blood. She could hear the growl, rumbling in its throat.
Without warning and as if on cue, the werewolf threw its head back and howled at the moon.
A/N- This chapter came so naturally, so easily for me that, frankly, it was shocking how fast I was able to finish it. What was more shocking still was that I couldn't find a good stopping place! Um… let's see – I wanted everyone to have a thorough knowledge of Gianna and her father. Their relationship in this story is particularly important. I think it's quite easy to fall in love with Snape (don't worry – enter Snape Chapter 2) – no matter his age or what he's been up to in a fic. But it's entirely another thing to really fall in love with a female OC lead. Thus was the reasoning for such a long Snape-less spell. I'm looking forward to writing him in future chapters, which aren't too far off! Hope everyone enjoys reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! If this brain wave continues on like this, we could have quite the adventure on our hands! LOL! Thanks for checking this out – I know the summary was kind of "lame" – but, let's see where it goes, shall we? Please R/R!