Disclaimer: The world in which this is set is influened by J. Rowling. I make no financial profit of the story.

Warning: original characters ahead.

Part II: Age of Innocence

4: First sight

(Several years earlier - May 1991)

Viola washed a cloth in a bowl of cool water, the light from the candles on the nightstand shimmering on its surface. She turned to the woman on the bed whose face was contorted in pain and whose dark locks that usually resembled so very much her own presently clang to the woman's sweaty skin. Brushing them gently away, Viola carefully placed the cool cloth on the hot forehead. The tension on her mother's face eased a little.

With a crash the door to the room was thrown open and the old house elf hurried in, tailed by two men. 'The mediwizard has arrived, mistress,' the bent being croaked. The girl had never grown warm with it. Behind the elf, the master of the house entered the room, his gaze falling on his daughter and darkening. With a curt nod, he ordered her out. 'Stop acting like a house elf!' he hissed when she passed him.

The door fell into its lock behind her, shutting her out. All she could hear were her mother's whimpers, while the old grandfather clock ticked away and she sat on the floor, examining the many cracks and wormholes in the worn wooden boards.

She was home during the Christmas holidays, but they were not festive. Her elder sister was confined to her room to learn for her sixth year exams, and her mother was fighting with severe cramps in the late phase of her… -well, Viola was at a loss when she tried to determine how many times her mother had carried a child already.

The piercing scream of a baby wrenched her out of her thoughts. Relief flooded through her body. She jumped up, but immediately stopped herself from bursting into the room, knowing that her father would be displeased by such immature behaviour. The girl strained her ears to hear anything else from within, but there was nothing but a low murmur that mingled with the cries of her newborn sibling. With a nagging urgency one question revolved in her mind: was it a boy or a girl?

It was a dark cloud that hung over their family ever since Viola could remember. Her mother was a frail, sensitive woman, not unlike herself, and the main purpose of her life was to give birth to a healthy male heir. So far, she had failed. Two children she had lost in the last years since Viola was old enough to notice what was happening with her mother. Yet now the sound of the baby's voice raised her hopes.

A few minutes later, the door was wrenched open. Her father looked down on her. 'Fetch your sister,' he ordered curtly.

Barely a minute later, her two years older sister knocked timidly on the door. Viola peered sideways past her into the room as the door was opened by the mediwizard. Her mother lay motionless in the bed, perhaps asleep. Beside her stood a wooden crib. And beside that crib stood their father. 'Greet your brother.'

Viola's face lit up, and she locked eyes with her sister, the two girls rejoicing silently.

Viola spent the rest of her holidays at the bedside of her mother. She was weak, fighting a fever. It was only the day before Viola and her sister had to go back to school that her mother's health improved somewhat. The three females ate some light soup and a bit of toast together in the bedroom, then the two girls floo'ed to Beauxbatons.

When they returned home for the Easter weekend, there lay a brooding silence over the house. 'Mor!' called Viola after her mother. Her sister, Agnetha (she had been named after their grandmother), climbed the stairs to her room and knocked at the door. When there was no reply, she pressed her ear against the dark wood to listen. Perceiving no sound, she quietly pushed it open. Resigned, she closed it again and looked down to Viola, shaking her head.

She descended the stairs and whispered, 'There was no crib…' At those words, Viola's stomach convulsed. The sisters gazed at each other, anxious looks in their eyes. Together they moved through the lower parts of the house, until eventually they found their mother in a rocking chair in the garden. Despite the warm spring sun, she was enveloped in a thick blanket.

'Mor?' Agnetha addressed her, crouching down in front of her.

Their mother smiled at the sight of her eldest child and placed a hand lovingly on her cheek. Her face was pale, and her smile seemed forced, lifeless. It suddenly struck Viola that for a woman of her age, her mother's face was unusually lined.

'Where is father?' enquired Agnetha.

Their mother's smile vanished. The slender woman withdrew her hand and looked with a pained expression on her face to the old, windswept birch that stood at the end of the garden. 'I fear your father has deserted us.'

Deserted. The word struck Viola with a cold fierceness. Gone. For good.

'Has he taken the little one?' Agnetha asked.

The woman in the rocking chair shook her head almost imperceptibly. 'Your brother has died a week ago. Cot death.' She said this quietly, derive of any emotion, sounding defeated. Then she added, 'The mediwizard said that I could not have any more children. That the past pregnancies had put too much strain on my body. You know how much your father wanted a son…'

The frail woman tucked on her blanket to envelop herself more tightly in it in search for comfort. Her girls snuggled up to her. They were on their own, now.

.~*~.

It was late in May, and Viola sat in a meadow near the school. In contrast to other schools which were more restrictive, Beauxbatons allowed its pupils to wander about freely each Saturday afternoon, and the fourteen year old used this opportunity whenever the weather allowed it to practice before she went into town to have her violin lessons. Inside the school, she always feared someone would walk in on her when she sought out an unused classroom or toilet to shape up her play, therefore the weekly excursions were a treasured reprieve for her.

Presently, she was playing a low, melancholic tune that had been composed by an unknown wizard at the end of the sixteenth century. It was one of her favourites of late. It reflected how she felt inside – lost and uncertain. They had had no word of her father's whereabouts. Her mother had written the two sisters the previous week, informing them that she had found a part-time occupation in the apothecary of their town. Viola had been delighted, thinking (and saying it) that everything was going to work out in the end, but her elder sister had not been so certain. She had said a part-time job as unskilled employee was not going to be enough to sustain three people. Perhaps their father had left them some savings?

The girl played the last notes, slowly diving out of the depths of her thoughts. The sudden deep sound of clapping hands made her startle violently and turn around to see who had snuck up on her. Viola had to screw up her eyes to see the figure in the bright sunlight. It was a man clad in dark clothes who stood a dozen feet away from her, forming a stark contrast with the flower-covered meadow and the bright blue sky. When her eyes had adjusted, she saw his face, however, that looked at her benignly.

'You play beautifully,' the man commended her with a soft, deep voice.

Viola averted her eyes and rose timidly to her feet. 'Thank you.' She carefully placed her old violin back in its case. The girl was slightly uncomfortable in the presence of the stranger. She had been taught to keep her distance from unknown people, especially men. Her father had always made a point of reprimanding her for mingling with 'lesser people'. 'I need to go to my lesson, now,' she informed the stranger.

'In Mytèrle?' enquired he.

Viola inclined her head reluctantly.

'I am headed in the same direction for a meeting. Would you care for my company?' the stranger proposed.

Finding no reason to deny him that politeness would have allowed her to voice, Viola shook her head.

She trod along beside her silent companion, glancing at him sideways to get a better impression of him. He seemed quite tall to her. He was not nearly as tall as Madame Maxime, one of her teachers, but certainly taller than her father, and he looked… as if he was not an academic but a more 'active' man, the girl decided. Her mind provided her with a wide variety of possible occupations that would explain his appearance. Apart from his robust clothes, he also wore his light brown hair long, partly falling in wild waves around his face, partly tied together in a tail, and his mouth was surrounded by a circle beard. Despite this unconventional appearance, he did not look unkempt. On the contrary.

'How long have you been playing?' he startled her out of her contemplation of his face, his grey eyes turning away from the distant countryside they had been perusing and settling on her face instead.

'For six years,' she answered and brushed her hair behind her ear self-consciously. After that, she hugged her violin case close to her chest. Viola was not used to drawing attention to herself.

'And you are how old, now?'

'Fourteen.' He in turn looked about twice her age.

'What's your name?'

'Viola. Viola Søgaard. And you?' she returned the enquiry to interrupt the stranger's stream of questions that made her even more uncomfortable. Why should he take such an interest in a random girl?

'Régis is my name, but I am usually called Reg,' the man answered. They left the meadow and stepped onto the road.

For a while, they walked in silence again. 'Reg' walked on the right side, close to the brim of the meadow that was cut in half by the path, and every once in a while picking a flower as he walked. Viola went on the left side and wondered about her companion. His appearance seemed entirely out of place in this landscape. After some hesitation, she plucked up the courage to initiate some further talk to unravel the mystery of his presence. 'Where are you coming from that you came by my hiding place? Usually I'm all by myself here,' she asked shily, feeling bold.

He motioned with his head toward the big manor house that rested on a distant hill, accompanied by two outbuildings. The Beauxbatons Academy had been relocated a century ago because the ancient castle in which it previously had resided had been haunted by vile ghosts that had resisted every attempt to drive them out. 'I delivered something to your potions teacher.'

'Ingredients?'

Reg nodded.

'Are you a Herbologist?' Viola guessed in the face of his growing bouquet.

The man smiled wrily while bending down to pluck a wild, still green wheat blade to add it to his collection of white-blossomed yarrow and red-blossomed poppy. Dimples appeared around his mouth, softening his features once more that otherwise seemed rather distant. 'No.'

'No plants?'

His smile spread to his eyes. There was something sly in them. 'No plants.'

'Which leaves ingredients from animals.'

Reg added a couple of corn flowers to his bucket and rose again so they could move on. 'That seems an accurate deduction,' he answered with mild amusement. He arranged the flowers. 'What about you? Do you only play for bees and ants or is there a chance of admiring your virtuous talent during a regular concert?'

Heat rose to Viola's cheeks. 'I'm not nearly good enough for that!'

'I beg to differ,' Reg contradicted her in his relaxed, calm manner. 'I attend musical performances as often as my tight schedule allows me, which renders me quite capable of judging whether I am listening to something worthwhile, and I idid/i enjoy what met my ears when I walked past your "hiding place". Although I daresay your instrument has seen better days.'

Viola looked away in embarrassment, both at his praise of her play and critique of her violin. Eventually she replied to the letter, feeling on firmer ground there. 'Yes. It is… old.' Of course she knew that age was not necessarily a sign of bad shape for an instrument. On the contrary, some of the best instruments had been fabricated centuries ago and were played by the most successful musicians these days. Her violin, however, was merely a cheap, worn copy made at the beginning of the century and acquired for a very low price. Her mother had enabled Viola to follow her dearest wish against the will of her father – the only time that the girl could remember her mother to openly oppose her husband.

The unlikely pair finally drew closer to the town. Mystèrle was part of one of four Muggle-free areas in France, surrounded by an enchanted wall whose gates only opened to magical folk. When they had stepped onto the cobblestone pavement, Viola's companion halted in his tracks. 'Where are you headed?'

Viola pointed to the right. 'To Mademoiselle Julie in the Rue d'Oona.'

'In this case, I fear, our ways part here. My client waits in the Chaudron de sorcièrs.' He held the bouquet out to her with a wink and an impish smile.

The girl returned his smile, secretly happy about their encounter, and stretched out her thin arm to accept the flowers.

'It would be a pleasure to hear you play again some time in the future. Until then…' Régis gave her the hint of a bow and walked off.

Viola looked after him. His heels reverberated hard on the pavement until he disappeared behind a corner. Her heart beat faster for some time after he'd gone.

The bell of a nearby clock tower pulled her forcefully out of her reverie, and she hurried along.

.~*~.

It was a day in June, and Viola sat at her desk in the room that she shared with two other girls at Beauxbatons. The late afternoon sun flooded the room with light, and a soft breeze that flowed in through the open window made the heat more bearable. The potions annual exam was due the next day, and she was once more going over all the brews the curriculum had included.

Over the last weeks, she had wondered whenever she had chopped flobberworms or used powdered unicorn horn if this had been part of the stranger's delivery. For two weeks she had smiled each morning when waking up at the sight of the flowers he had given her. They had stood in a vase on her bedside table, until eventually they had withered. Adults rarely granted Viola their attention, especially not men. After all, she was only the second daughter of an impoverished pureblood that had eventually ruined their family's reputation for good by deserting them. That Reg had been so interested in her, had complimented her, had even called her talented, that had left a deep impression on the fourteen year old.

Suddenly, the girl grew aware of the sound of fluttering wings. When she turned around, she found two owls perched on the foot end of her bed, a package lying behind them on the coverlet.

With a puzzled frown, Viola rose from her chair. Before her father had left, her mother had sometimes sent them self-baked biscuits when she had had some money left to pay the owl rental service, but these days she was too busy. Viola could think of no one else who would send her anything, least of all a package.

One of the owls, a gigantic eagle owl with a superior look about it, hooted impatiently to warn that Viola should hurry up. She lifted the package out of the net that had been mounted between the owls. Immediately, the birds took flight again.

Viola eyed up the parcel. It was asymmetric, its shape hard to name, and it was carefully wrapped in several layers of brown paper that – she could tell from their sheen – had been spelled to repel rain. A small label attached to it held her name. She wasn't familiar with the handwriting. The package had a satisfying weight in the little girl's hands, heightening her eagerness to find out what was inside. Shaking the parcel gave her no additional clues, nor did bringing it up to her nose to smell it.

Eventually, Viola decided to open it. Meticulously trying to keep the wrapping as intact as possible, she removed one layer after the other, until the last pieces of paper fell away. Her eyes widened. It could not be! How? Who?

There lay a violin case on her bed, its polished black leather surface gleaming in the sunlight. It was closed by several old silver clasps adorned with fine rune carvings. Her hands trembling, Viola fumbled to open them, yet a brush of her fingertips sufficed. The runes seemed to come alive. They glowed and moved about, and the case opened of its own accord with an almost inaudible click.

Viola's breath caught at the sight of the case's content. Bedded on sky blue satin, there was a gleaming violin. With only the tip of one finger, she brushed over the highly polished wood in deep admiration and awe. It was perfect. Not a single scratch. For a moment, she sat and raked her eyes over it in silent admiration.

Then her eyes started to search for a note. All that she found was the authenticity certificate, identifying the instrument as newly manufactured by Sirenia Fidelio, who was renowned to be the best instrument maker in two centuries. Admittedly, there were not many instrument makers amongst the wizards, yet magically manufactured instruments were finer than Muggle handiwork, and Mrs. Fidelio used only the best quality of unicorn and veela hair for the strings.

Viola sank down onto the bed beside the violin case, looking at it forlornly, her pulse resonating hard in her body. What was she to do? She could not just keep such a valuable present, could she? The girl carefully closed the lit again, wrapped the paper around the case and hurried out of the room to seek out her sister.

'Agnetha,' she peeked through a gap in her sister's door. The sixth and seventh year students lived in the outbuildings, each occupying a small room of their own to be able to fully concentrate on their exam preparations.

'You are sent by the gods!' the blonde, young woman exclaimed. 'You need to help me with Herbology! Here's the book – give me the names of plants and check if I give you the right properties.' As she held out the book, her eyes fell on the badly wrapped package that her younger sister held tightly to her chest. 'What's this?'

'I received this a few minutes ago. But I don't know why…,' Viola found it hard to speak coherently. The surprise package had entirely overwhelmed her.

Agnetha, who was a straight forward person, attacking everything with a cool rationale, took the parcel out of her little sister's arms and opened it once more. The two girls examined the gift. 'Well, it is addressed to you…' Agnetha said in the end. That was an odd comment. Viola wondered what she meant by that.

Her sister sighed. 'Lala,' that was how she had called her smaller sister when she had been born and she herself had only been two years old, and the nickname had stuck, 'you do know that we don't have much money anymore, don't you?'

'We never did. What do you mean? I don't think I have to pay for this. It's a present, isn't it? I just don't know who has so much money and would spend it on me…'

Agnetha shook her head sadly. 'I don't mean that violin, Lala. I am talking about your lessons. Mor wrote me yesterday. She says she can't afford them any longer. The next week's lesson was paid in advance, but after that…' She looked at her dark-haired, smaller sister with regret. 'I'm sorry. I know how much your music means to you.'

Viola felt slightly queasy. Her gaze rested on the precious instrument. 'Perhaps I could sell my old violin…?' she suggested.

'You won't get much for that. If you sold this one, however…'

Viola's gaze shot up.

'A Fidelio violin must be worth hundreds of Galleons, especially since Sirenia Fidelio has died last week. They'll outbid each other to get hold of this. It's only until I can marry Søren. Everything will improve after my wedding…' Agnetha was betrothed to the heir of a moderately wealthy pureblood family.

A bolt shot through Viola's body at the thought of giving this precious instrument away. She jumped up and pulled her gift close to her. 'No. I'd rather practice a year on my own than just give this away. I'll never be able to afford something like this! It was a present; it must carry a meaning!' With that, she rushed out of the room again, leaving her puzzled and worried sister to deal with Herbology on her own.

Notes concerning chapter 5

On Viola: I chose that name because I wanted it to bear a musical reference. It is also a rather old, yet beautiful, female name. Additionally, it bares semblance to 'vial', a small glass vessel – fragile, lucent, yet holding an unknown fluid… Viola is a fragile, sensitive, innocent young woman, but there is a certain depth to her, a sweet melancholy, that attracts Regulus.

Mor = mom, mother

Fleur mentioned once that the examinations that equal the O.W.L.s are held after sixth year at Beauxbatons

Merry Christmas to you all!

Reviews = love.