Disclaimer: 'Tis the property of Jo and Mr. Lewis-Bobuis, dears.

Note: Slight profanity. Veryveryvery slight. She says "crap", okay?

Previously:

She stood up shakily, brushing off her robes. Taking a deep breath, she looked up at her surroundings.

"Narnia," she breathed.

…

Aurora blinks her eyes, trying in vain to adjust to this ohsovery gray setting around her. After several minutes of further blinking and rubbing, she looks around.

She seems to be in some sort of… bedroom? There's an elegant mirror, similar to the one that had transported her to this place (Narnia?), lavishly decorated fur rugs, and several rusty swords hanging on the uneven stone walls. Behind her is the enormous four-poster bed on which she had first landed. Beside the bed is a frosted window. However, under further inspection, it appears that the window is a regular one, simply frozen over with the cold of winter.

For the first time, Aurora notices how chilly the room is, and she shivers as she steps away from the bed. It's summer back in London, and her clothes are thin and flowing, hardly appropriate for a stone castle in the midst of winter.

But why is it winter?

If this was really Narnia, like she thinks, then shouldn't it have been green and lively? Where has the spring gone? And where is-

"Hello?"

Crap.

She grabs the closest thing to her, a tiny lion figurine (as if it'll do much good), and ducks behind the bed, muscles tensed.

"Hello-o?" calls the voice again, quivering slightly this time. Aurora gets the feeling that this person is just as confused as she is. The voice is soft and feminine, like the tinkling of bells in a summer breeze.

She peeks out slowly, strawberry blonde curls enveloping her face as she pokes her head out from behind the silky covers of the bed.

Oddly enough, there's nothing in front of her. She blinks, just to make sure. Nope, still blank.

But then, all of a sudden, there's something on her shoulder, and it's all a blur after that, and all Aurora knows is that after a few seconds of flailing, there's suddenly a lump of red and yellow spread across the cold stone floor, and there's something large, pointy, and potentially dangerous in her hand.

She looks at her hands first. Nestled comfortable between her fingers is a sword, sharp and dangerous, throwing silver sparkles of light all across the room. It seems to glow in her hands as she slowly holds it further away from her, considering her past experiences with potentially lethal instruments. Um, hello – she's related to Nymphadora Tonks, remember? Tastefully adorned on the hilt of the sword is a golden lion, bold and fearful, yet rather sweet and charming at the same time.

Aurora shakes her head, pulling her mind away from the magic of the sword, and the mysterious lion engraved on it. Instead, she looks down at the shivering mess on the ground.

A girl who looks about her age is lying in front of her, adorned in a red cloak and silvery dress, with tangled blonde curls hanging limply around her pale face. Her eyes are wide and frightened, and Aurora notices that her hands are shaking as she scrambles to her feet.

"Who- who are you?" Aurora asks, confused. "And pray tell, where in the name of Merlin am I?"

The girl cocks her head to one side as she brushes herself off. "You'll find out who I am later. I have a few questions first."

Aurora narrows her eyes, annoyed. She tackles this lady to the ground, and now she's the one being interrogated?

"Er-okay, then," she mutters, trying to avoid an argument.

"Is your name, by any chance, Aurora Lucy Lupin?"

Aurora feels her eyes widen and her head spin. There's too much, too much going on at the moment, and she wills her Gryffindor courage to come back to her, to just gather some strength to carry on the conversation with this strange girl. Her stomach lurches, and fear consumes her. Aurora debates on whether or not to lie to the girl. Frantically, her mind searches for another name.

"No, my name's Victoire." Aurora's not too sure how her mother's name fell from her mouth, but, hey, she'll go with it if it means getting some answers.

The girl smirks. "No, it's not. If you were Victoire, she'd know who I was, and I'd know, too."

Aurora shakes her head. "You know my mother?"

The girl's blue eyes are piercing her now, and Aurora searches her brain to remember where she's seen those eyes before. They look vaguely familiar, but she can't quite put her finger on it.

"You- you could say that, yes, I used to know your mother."

Aurora's defensive side kicks in. After growing up around too many Weasleys to count, they've taught her a thing or two about standing her ground. Lifting her chin, she says boldly, "Prove it."

The girl sighs. "She's married to a man named Teddy. At least, she was, the last time I spoke with her."

"She still is," Aurora says, then quickly clapping her hand over her mouth. She clears her throat. Although the girl is earning her trust a little more by the second, she's still unsure. "Keep going."

"Er," the girl searches the ceiling, furrowing her brow, as though her so-called memories are painful and distant.

"Her mother's name was Fleur, her father's name was Bill. She's one-eighth Veela, and she has a sister named Dominique and a brother named Louis. She was a Ravenclaw at Hogwarts. She-she always twirled her hair while she was thinking, and she never went anywhere without her Sweet Berry lipstick. She used to do this funny thing with her nose, y'know, crinkle it a little when she was sad or angry-". The girl's voice cuts off, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Sorry," she says weakly, half-sobbing, half-laughing. "I just- I just really miss her, that's all. She's the one who first introduced me to Narnia, and..." Her voice trails off again, and a tear slips down her cheek.

Even after all that she has been through today, Aurora's mind goes into overdrive. Her mind is spinspinspinning, and she's sure that she's got a look on her face like the one Uncle James has when Aunt Rose tries to talk about Arithmancy.

Narnia? So it does exist? The first one who introduced her to Narnia…?

No one in her family but herself and her mother are believers in Narnia. The whole family just thinks it to be a cute little fairy-tale, but they know better. Oh, and one of her mum's cousins, she knew that. Her mother talked about her often, but she had passed in a train wreck right after Aurora was born. Aunt Lucy, she was called.

Realization hits Aurora like a ton of bricks. She looks at the girl again, the blonde hair, the blue eyes-

Blue like the sky.

Or rather, like the Narnian sky.

Just like hers. Just like her mother's.

With strength she didn't know she had, she whispers, "Aunt-Aunt Lucy?"

The girl smiled, drying her tears with her fingertips. "I knew you'd remember."

More tears cascade down her face, and she holds out her arms.

Aurora falls into them, and hugs her aunt, the one whom she hasn't seen in sixteen years. When Aunt Lucy finally pulls back, she looks straight into her eyes, straight into her soul.

"Your eyes – they're just as I remembered them," Aunt Lucy says softly. "Oh, Aurora, you're so beautiful."

Aurora's heard that many times before, as she is, after all, one-sixteenth Veela, and the charm hardly tones down after being passed down a few generations. But this is the first time she takes the compliment seriously, the first time she actually favors in those words.

Aurora Lucy Lupin is beautiful.

And so is Narnia.

[note for future reference: Bold = Drishti, Italics = Bri]

Our first chapter! Le woot! Erm, I know we said that we were going to alternate chapters, but apparently, sending the thing back and forth ten times along with a few thousand PMs works for us. So, er, yeah.

Review, por favor?

~ Drishti (and Bri)