"A quick demise is often the most mercy one could hope to receive."
Halley rolled her eyes. It had been the third time that day that Circe insisted upon using the most overdramatic statements paired with an awful exaggeration of her father's British accent.
"Circe, you need to stop with your moping! It isn't all bad, didn't you say you were going to finally meet that boy you've been writing to?"
Circe sighed, and tugged at one of the heavy trunks laid around the small apartment.
"Regulus is quite possibly the only reason this trip will be bearable." She mumbled.
Circe smiled softly as she remembered the boy in the pictures he'd sent, small, with bright grey eyes and a mess of black hair framing an angular face.
Sure, it was certainly an outdated picture but he couldn't have change that much, could he?
"Don't touch the letters!" Tina called from the kitchen.
"Okay, ma!" An eight year old Circe raced for the table, where an enormous pile of letters, boxes and even a couple of howlers sat. She quickly sifted them into semi-neat categories and got to work.
"No, no, no- ooh, someone from China! No, no... Aha!"
Her small fingers peeled open the small envelope that had caught her interest. It was an unassuming letter, with no particularly memorable distinctions to be made, but on the far right corner of it, Circe had spotted the unmistakeable ink scratches of a crossed out return address. That almost always meant the sender wanted to stay anonymous. Those were always the most fun to read.
Newt Scamander had always received a fair amount of fan mail and inquiries by owl post and of course, despite his and Tina's responsible attempts to keep a small child away from unfamiliar packages, Circe's curiosity always overwhelmed her common sense.
Now safely tucked away in the soft nook of her bedroom window, Circe carefully peeled open the letter. "Dear, Mr. Scamander," She read aloud, already giggling at her own mischief.
"My name is Regulus Black and I thoroughly enjoyed your book, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, and I had some inquiries about house elves that hopefully you can provide some clarity for."
Circe hummed thoughtfully. The handwriting, although swooping and elegant, was shaky and rather large, which lead her to question the senders age, but she had never known a child who spoke with such stiffness.
She pranced around her room, eagerly shuffling through her stationary kit (kindly gifted to her by her stuffy Uncle Theseus). Circe began to draft a reply,
"Dear, Mister Black,"
Presently, Circe just dreaded her visit to Europe because of Regulus. Despite his attempts to convince Circe that London was far superior than New York, all his letters describing the people there were always written with a certain air of disdain that insinuated that everyone across the pond were just awful snobs.
Circe loved her father and mother, and the work that they did was marvelous, but she wasn't too keen on spending her remaining years with people that she didn't truly want to know her. Even so, she never once voiced these complaints to her parents because how could she? Her father was so excited to go back to his childhood home by the sea, and her mother longed to see Aunt Queenie, who had retired to the quiet hills in Wales after the war.
In any case, Circe was grateful to get away for a change. The city was home, and she could not imagine living any place else, but it was suffocating at times. A brand new start could be just what she needed, Circe concluded after about a half hour of pacing- when she should have been packing, Halley reminded.
Another thing was that Halley Nurse, the only true friend that Circe had, would be left behind in America. Well, it was more that Circe would suffer than anything, as Halley had always been quite popular at Ilvermorny anyways. People would always comment on how different the two were and how lovely Halley was, while the same judgmental looks were thrown at Circe over and over again. The good thing about Halley was that she had never once resented Circe for being so different.
The start of their friendship was blurry, and neither could quite remember the first words they had spoken to the other, but all they knew was that theirs was an instant platonic compatibility. They were both in Horned Serpent together, and loved each other as sisters would. Sometimes Halley hated Circe for her apparent apathy, her sometimes too loud humming, and her penchant to crack her knuckles when nervous, but all that was forgotten as the two reluctantly parted ways on the eve of Circe's departure to her newest adventure abroad.
"Don't forget to write everyday." Sniffed Halley.
Circe chuckled, "I won't, as long as you do the same!"
"Merlin, I wish I could just stay here with you." She sighed moving to hug her best friend.
Halley's response was muffled in her shoulder. "But then you wouldn't get to see your family and Regulus- and this could be your one chance to see the Albus Dumbledore!" Circe pulled away.
"Dad always kept me out of all that stuff, and I'm not too sure I wanna get into it now." After the war, her father and mother had settled down in New York, trying to shield her from the fallout of Grindelwald's last attacks. She had idolized Dumbledore as a kid, and even though her parents were quite well acquainted with him, all his visits seemed to take place while she was away at school, or at Halley's.
"But wouldn't he know something about... them?" Halley tentatively questioned, almost whispering the forbidden words.
Circe froze. She knew what Halley meant. It never seemed to come out naturally, and no matter how hard she tried, the topic of her birth parents always left a bitter taste in her mouth.
Almost robotically, she responded as she always did. "I don't need to know about that. It's fine."
She didn't want to leave Halley on such a sour note, so she did her best to smile, coming up with a lightly upturned wince. "Anyways, I just hope that I won't regret this trip."
Halley smiled warmly. All she wanted for her sister was the life that she deserved, even if it was so far away.
"Yeah," She grinned. "I wouldn't be too worried about it."