A/N: This story is set 3 years before Harry's arrival at Hogwarts and will be more or less following canon articles wherever applicable, but when not its all original fiction guys.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters created by JKR soooo, don't sue, thanks.
A/N: Lacerta pronunciation: la-SIR-tah
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As she and her friends walked into the Great Hall for dinner, Caroline was grinning widely with Nadia and Meagan chuckling from nervous laughter. Neither of them knew exactly what Caroline had in mind but they were certain they were soon going to find out. They separated as usual and sat at their respective tables, Meagan had turned away from Caroline to slide her bag under the table giving Caroline the chance she needed to cast the storm spell at the ceiling. She held her wand under the table in her lap, just the tip of it flush with the edge of the table aimed at the ceiling. A small flash was emitted from her wand but was quickly hidden by the reflecting light from the brightly lit torches. Grinning at her successful spell casting she prepared to eat light, it would only take about 10 minutes for the full size of the storm to rain down on them and she had no intention of being among the drenched students. She looked across the sea of heads towards Nadia who was constantly shifting her gaze up while she ate. Caroline finished her light meal of a banana with yogurt and sweet tea calmly and leaned over to Meagan.
"In a minute, it's going to be torrential in here!" She beamed, "I'm going to get up and leave, don't follow me, if anyone asks, I was going to the bathroom."
Meagan nodded quietly and watched her go, she mouthed to Nadia to stay put. The moment Caroline had stepped out the door and turned the corner she heard the low rumbling of the storm clouds. She turned to see a flash of light and the booming sound of thunder echoing down the halls. Many of the first year students screamed but were told to calm down by their older peers. Several had rushed to the windows to see the formidable storm clouds outside and upon seeing now shouted to the rest of the students in the hall. Meagan jumped up and ran outside the Great Hall to get Caroline at the same time Nadia did, before Meagan reached the doors Nadia stopped and was pointing at the ceiling stone still.
"Look everyone! It's raining!"
Everyone stopped what they were doing to look up as the start of the downpour commenced drenching everything. Meagan shouted for Caroline among all the other shouts from students who were fortunate enough not to be under the clouds to come see. Meagan found Caroline leaning against a stone pillar checking out her nails.
"Took you long enough, come on!"
They rushed back to the Great Hall along with all the other students coming to see. Many of the students were pushing their way out of the hall or seeking cover under their tables to no avail because there were massive puddles all over. The professors were frantically trying to get everyone together and out of the hall to stop the storm but amid all the noise they went unheard. Caroline pushed to the head of the crowd to get a better look at her masterpiece. She spotted Nadia playing in the rain jumping into puddles and thoroughly enjoying herself as were a few others. Caroline was beside herself laughing at the chaos she had caused very much pleased with her handiwork. From across the hall she felt someone's eyes on her, Snape. She thought. Fuck it, why is he staring at me? Caroline felt a twinge of panic but immediately stifled it and stared boldly back as if saying: Yea it was me who did that, but how are you going to prove it? Snape gritted his teeth and went on with getting students out of the hall in groups.
Days later students were still talking about the flood in the Great Hall during dinner. Mr. Filch was seen muttering about the halls about what he'd do to the person once he caught them, lamenting at the fact that he could no longer string the offender up by their toes like in the good old days. For the past week Caroline had been getting nasty red letters via owl post from her parents during breakfast, somehow they had heard a version about her first day at school other than her well mannered and well written note. They were glad she was doing so well in her studies but she had always been an excellent student academically, it was behaviorally that always brought trouble. By some means they had found about the flooding in the Great Hall and mistakenly identified her as the culprit. Unfortunately this time they no longer sent her angry red letters which she could read in her own time privately, though she had always thrown them away unread. This time, they sent her a Howler. Caroline looked at the unfortunate red letter and tossed it aside, it bounced back towards her, she threw it away again, but it kept coming back. Meagan took note of this odd behavior.
"Caroline…have you never gotten a Howler before?"
"The hell is a Howler? I don't have a monkey."
Meagan shook her head, "No, that red letter you keep trying to throw away."
"Yea, I've always gotten red letters from my folks when they were particularly angry with me. All I do is burn them or toss them in the trash and that's the end of it. Except this one doesn't want to stay in the trash." She glared at it.
"The reason why it keeps coming back is because that's a Howler, and if you don't open it soon it's going to—"
The letter had opened up by itself with a booming male voice.
"CAROLINE LACERTA BLACK! JUST WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING FLOODING THE SCHOOL AGAIN? THIS IS THE LAST STRAW, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SHAPE UP THEN WE MIGHT AS WELL DISOWN YOU RIGHT NOW!"
An angry female voice followed.
"MI HIJITA! ARE YOU CRAZY OR JUST STUPID? WE ASKED YOU, WE'VE TOLD YOU, WE'VE DEMANDED THAT YOU STOP THIS NONSENSE YET YOU CONTINUE TO DEFY OUR BEST OF WISHES FOR THE FINEST YOU CAN RECEIVE AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY US? YOUR FATHER IS VERY UPSET AND WILL BE TRUE TO HIS WORD, EITHER YOU LEARN TO BEHAVE OR WE'LL TOSS YOU OUT, YOUR CALL."
With that the bellowing mouth ate itself up into little red pieces of paper; the entire hall had gone quiet. Everyone had stopped to listen to Caroline's Howler, the teachers had stopped and stared, everyone one of them had their brows furrowed, Snape looked pissed. All the students started whispering to themselves more fervently than ever, "So it was HER all along!", "Imagine that, a SLYTHERIN pulled that off!"
Caroline acted like nothing had changed and continued eating amid the staring. Meagan looked incredulous at Caroline's reaction.
"Aren't you the least bit worried? My god! Caroline! They threatened to disown you!"
Caroline shrugged, "Yea, they do that a lot, but since they've as yet fallen short of making any attempts I fail to see the threat in their lies."
Meagan was beside herself, "But, now everyone knows! You're going to be expelled!"
"They don't know anything, all they know is that my parents shouted at me for flooding a room, which ironically coincides with that incident a few days ago, when I accidentally made the girl's loo flood down the main steps. Don't worry I've made sure to cover my tracks carefully."
Caroline stood up on the table and cleared her throat loudly so all attention was on her.
"Everyone heard the Howler, we all know about the bathroom incident. Why my parents are being harsh like that I am not exactly sure except that by now, they've developed a zero tolerance for these things. Thank you for your attention."
Caroline dropped back down off the table, as she was collecting her things Dumbledore called her up to the raised table.
"Miss Black, pending this investigation I must ask that you come with me to my office immediately." He said in his ever calm manner.
Caroline nodded and followed Dumbledore out of the Great Hall. Inside his office he showed her to a seat and slowly made his way around his desk to sit opposite her.
"Ah, Lucius I see you have arrived on time."
Caroline turned around to see an elegantly dressed man with platinum blonde hair and piercing gray eyes. On his hand he wore an intricately carved silver serpent set with emeralds.
"Indeed. One can hardly expect tardiness under circumstances as important as this, Dumbledore." He cooed coolly. "Allow me to introduce myself Caroline, I am Lucius Malfoy, it is a pleasure to finally meet you."
Caroline nodded her head and turned back to Dumbledore who looked very distraught as if he bore most unfortunate news that he sadly must be the bearer of. He sat across from her and folded his hands on top of the desk.
"Caroline. We know you had some part to play in the ruse on the Great Hall's enchanted ceiling a few days ago."
Caroline did not react to this news, she was used to the headmasters of the different schools she attend try to get her to admit her guilt and would not be phased by Dumbledore's calm and gentle expressions. She watched Lucius warily as he hovered just out of her eyesight.
"I also know that that Howler you received today was not a threat and is fact."
At this Caroline merely raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms, "Do tell." She said nonchalantly to Dumbledore in response.
"I know that you are quite used to this sort of treatment so I will make this brief. Your parents have decided to go through with their threat and HAVE disowned you. You are no longer their child in the eyes of the law. Fortunately for you, this means we cannot kick you out as it is our duty as a live-in institution of education to provide you with room and board should a student become orphaned. At least until the end of the year, after that I am very sorry to say that we must send you back with the others."
Caroline shook her head and laughed, "I'm sure you've put great effort into this plan but let me tell you right now, it's just not going to work. I am innocent and you can't prove it was me. As for the whole orphaned thing, I don't believe it my parents for years have been using that threat and have done nothing of the sort through worse events. They hadn't gone through and done it then and they won't go through with it now."
Dumbledore looked twice as sad as when he had begun speaking shaking his head sadly.
"My dear, allow me to show you the proof for your own eyes to see." Lucius moved swiftly to her side removing from inside his cloak a folder which he passed to Caroline.
Upon inspection of the emblems on the folder by Caroline, Lucius pulled out several pieces of paper with multiple insignias and fancy lettering.
"These are copies of the letter they provided me just this morning, as you can see that is their signature protected by anti-forging spells from the firm they went to. There can be no lies here, they have disowned you and now you are considered an orphan. I'm sorry." Lucius said gravely.
He handed her the papers for her to look through, indeed they were authentic. Caroline stared at the pages hard, she wanted to rip them into pieces and shout at Dumbledore and this stranger for lying so harshly to her. But she knew this was no lie. They had done it. They had actually done it this time. She tossed the last straw unto the camel's back and now she was alone.
"They have left me access to an account which I will transfer to you. It contains a small amount of money for you to purchase the rest of your books with and a little bit extra. I thanked them on your behalf for their generosity." Dumbledore added gently.
Caroline was focused on a particular spot on the floor, angry and shocked beyond words. Tears were stinging her eyes, all she could think was, how could they?
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Bill and his friends were seated at the Gryffindor table on the other side of the hall for breakfast that morning. As usual the owls flew about for a few minutes during breakfast to deliver any mail to the students for that day. Just then Caroline's Howler echoed throughout the silenced hall. At the end of the angry message the letter ate itself up into tiny shreds of red paper. They watched as she stood up on her table to proudly proclaim that she had indeed flooded the girl's bathroom a few days back and stared as Dumbledore lead her away outside of the Great Hall towards his office. One by one they watched all the teachers leave to follow Dumbledore. Snape was out the instant Dumbledore had left to take Caroline to his office, followed by Professor McGonagall. The rest stayed with the students ushering them to finish with their meals and to continue with their scheduled classes much to the dismay of the students.
The emotion in the air after Caroline left was mixed. Those who knew her abilities and what she was capable of doing, which were a select few, were awed by her. The rest who knew next to nothing about her other than she was Snape's favorite were sure she was going to get off without so much as a detention, Snape would see to that. Bill stared across the hall at Caroline's friend Meagan who mouthed the words 'I don't know' to him. Jeremy and Paul tried to get more from her but since she was too far away they were all frustrated by miscommunication.
"Damn. I didn't know she could do something like that. I mean, I knew she knew more stuff than most but, not like that." Paul spoke in awe.
Jeremy looked towards Bill, "Hey man, I'm sure she'll be alright, she is Snape's pet, I'm sure he'll want to make sure she won't get punished." He snorted derisively.
Bill scowled back at him, "Don't talk about her like that, it's not her fault she's his pet. You've seen her, talked to her when I was with her, she's a nice person!"
Jeremy nodded, "Yea, but she's also a Slytherin Bill, and didn't I tell you that you couldn't trust that lot?"
The professors that remained did their best to quiet down the students, so early in the morning and she had already caused a sort of riot. When the professors had quelled the noisier of students they signaled for the end of breakfast and had all the students proceed to their classes in an effort to refocus their attention. Prefects appeared to order the younger students to their classes and help out the professors. But class was no where near quiet, after the first class period ended things were beginning to ease but the talk of that morning still was fresh in all their minds.
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Back at Dumbledore's office, the door was locked preventing anyone from interrupting. Only if Dumbledore had requested their presence was anyone allowed to enter. Snape pounded an angry fist at the door as he was barred from entering.
"She is MY student Albus! I should be allowed to enter!" Snape roared.
The door simply refused admittance and Snape grudgingly left to go teach Potions to some second years. Before he left he pressed his ear to the door and heard only muffled voices. Disgruntled he left hexing a statue on his way out. As he stalked his way back to his dungeon classes Snape replayed the Howler message Caroline had received. Her middle name, where have I heard a name like that? He pondered, I've seen that name somewhere before, in a book? A map? I know I've heard it before… Snape stopped dead in his tracks, a star chart! A constellation! At this his eyes flew open in possible realization of just who Caroline might be. He ran over to his office and took out the copies he had made of her file and cross referenced the names on her father's side with those of a star chart and found each and every one of the Black family members were named after constellations. He looked at the dates for their births and brought out a family tree of the Blacks here in England and circled all those whom her family could possibly be tied to. Snape looked through the historical information about who married whom and how many children each had but had found nothing of interest.
"There's got to be something missing, something I'm not paying close attention to." Snape speculated aloud.
Just when he was about to give up he saw it. Under a heading for a Regulus Black and his penchant for running overseas companies all over the world, of particular interest to Snape was the mention of a wealthy American corporation during the 40s where he spent a majority of his time at. The family disapproved of his actions but not enough to rid him from the family's history because he would work the Muggles to death in his factories, something they liked. At his death there was some argument with some American half-blood witch who claimed Regulus wanted to be buried there in the States but was flatly refused by the family. Unfortunately for me her name is not listed anywhere so I could still be grasping thin air here. Snape thought in annoyance. All I have to go on are the dates on this Regulus and her grandfather Richard, both died the same day of the same year, but that can be coincidence too, eerie coincidence but there's no hard proof!
Snape looked up the names of the family members who were disowned from the family, one name that was contemporary with the Regulus in question was listed as deceased in the Wizarding Records, but the Squib, Marius, whom some information may have been passed on to might provide Snape with the answers he seeks. He hurriedly wrote a note and rushed up the steps to the Owlery choosing the fastest owl to deliver his message. With any luck I might find out what I need to know.
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