Chapter five
1987
Things had changed since then, as it should. Little Iris was now seven and came to find her new self as a calculating one, who was analytical in what she said, but still retained some of her five year old naivety and mannerism to most things, out of all the siblings, she resembled her mother most and had a rather un kept appearance that was with stark contrast to her sister Lacerta.
Draco was beginning to get more like his father and in turn he became the leader of sorts in his age group to all the other pureblood children.
Lacerta was eleven, and never did one see, one so appearance obsessed and with every dress she wore, she held a mask of carefulness and behind the glassy eyes, her thoughts were always ticking, for a way to exploit the world.
Her Sister in contrast, lurked about bullying anyone younger than her and she had formed her own gang and possessed the power her mother held. Both, Estella and Lacerta were now eleven and had received their letter for Hogwarts, which gave Estella much disgust, when she would not be attending Dumstrang and Lacerta equal disgust that she had to share a school with 'mudbloods and goodness knows what!'
Similarly Dumstrang shaped Cepheus into a rather different person altogether, gone were the childish naivety and were replaced with a dark maturity, Narcissa and Lucious were frequently adept in dealing with letters home of Ceph's sadistic nature.
And at last we come to Aquarius, quiet and rarely seen was he. When his only ally, Iris, had been taken under the wing of Estella and grew to become more like her, although, he thought to himself one day, she would never be as bad as Estella. He had taken time to stay far out of the manor and in fact, spent his days in the village of south Wiltshire.
It was one day, when he was about seven and he was sharing one of the delights of muggle ice cream from a local ice cream van, that he sat on the wall of the parish church, looking at the local notice board, not much really took to his eye; there were flower arranging classes, A congratulations on someone getting into a thing called oxford.
He nearly finished his ice cream, when he saw a flyer, it was small and faded, but however it was there, it did not quite disguise the title 'ballet lessons' picking it from the notice board, he realised that a lesson was only three pounds, he wasn't sure on muggle currency but he knew how to ask wizard money to be converted into muggle money at Greengots...no, he couldn't possible go...it was not the thing boys did...He shook his head, pinning the flyer back to the notice board...Then again, he thought, he didn't really care about Mother and Father and his mind reached back, to when he and Iris were friends. Iris had always said, he should have lessons in ballet. Why not, he thought, nodding and smiling he plucked the flyer from the notice board and went home, suppressing his secret all the way.
"1...2...3... and Aquarius, turn, step, turn" Called Mrs Pillory, the dance instructor.
Aquarius awoke from his daydream of when he found the flyer and preparing him in first position, nine year old Aquarius, danced the appropriate moves with natural grace and proudness, which was one of the only qualities in the black line, on his mother's side, he had inherited. And when he turned, carefully on the points he had just started to dance with, he felt a rush of exhilaration and the thrill of freedom.
"Good, now watch you're stance, you wobbled a little in the middle..." reminded Mrs Pillory.
Still fresh with excitement after trying out his newest move on points, he could only nod, still watching with only mild curiosity, he watched the other ballet dancers, perform their piece. All a few years older than him, as he found himself to be ahead of his age.
Eventually as the class ended, he packed up his things, keeping to himself as he was a quite child and did not really understand this thing called 'pop music' that the other muggles talked about, still this did not distract him from coming to ballet lessons, he found that he enjoyed them immensely and it was a way of escaping his growing fears of family expectations and relations.
He had converted a large sum of money the previous week and with that he used it to buy an ice cream from a local van. He had just come to realise that muggles and wizard-kind were not too different and in fact a lot of wizard technology were based on things that were once muggle. He sat down upon the same parish wall, where he had found the flyer and enjoyed the summer day licking his ice cream his thoughts were of nothing in particular...occasionally he thought back to when Ceph would be home or when finally it would be just him and Iris...or some new ballet move.
It wasn't long until he spied a small girl, a few years younger than him, she was sitting on the wall opposite him and she was crying. Aquarius peered closer, part of him not wanting to get involved and the other had an overwhelming sense of pity for the girl. She had bushy hair and rather larger front teeth. Sighing at his sensitive conscience, he finished of his ice cream and wondered over to the girl.
"Excuse me, are you alright?" he asked concerned, but then immediately thought it was a rather silly thing to say, of course she wasn't alright.
The girl gave a jump and looked up, she tried to smile at the elder boy but it came out as rather limp.
"Well, no, not really..." she said shaking her head.
"Oh, well, do you want to tell me?" he asked.
"I shouldn't really, you seemed so happy, I would hate to ruin you're good mood" she said.
"I would hate to see you cry."
"Well..." she began carefully. "Two years ago my friend Alyssa was mulled to death by a wolf or something, just over there in those woods, by that big house...you see, this is the first time I came back here to Wiltshire in two years and it brings back a lot of memories" said the girl getting tearful again.
"Where are your parents?" he asked.
"Oh, just round the corner getting some of the local fish from the fish shop."
Aquarius furrowed his brow, he had lived in Wiltshire most of his life and he had never come across wolves.
"You know..." he said thinking. "I lived here for most of my life and I have never seen a wolf here, anyway it must have come down from up north someplace, so what's your name?" he asked.
With the comment Aquarius saw Hermione tear up more, but she blinked away the tears and replied with "Hermione" and then "so you have live here most of your life, what about before?"
"I lived with my parents but their away now." He answered.
Nodding while they walked to a small patch of grass, they both sat down.
"So..." said Hermione "where do you live?"
"The big house over there..." said Aquarius pointing at the Malfoy manor in the distance.
All quite suddenly Hermione had a very unwelcome flash back.
"I can and I will, to prove these to weirdoes, I am brave." Said Alyssa, although she was foolish, you had to remember she was only seven.
Hermione groaned and reluctantly nodded.
With both siblings smiling they, beckoning the two muggles to the woods.
"So, do you live here?" asked Hermione, trying her best to make friends, she always struggled to make friends.
"Yes we do, in that big manor near the village, do you?" asked Iris.
"My mummy and Daddy say that whoever lives there is rich and no we are on holiday, me and Alyssa's mummy's are friends."
Estella was steadily leading them through the woods, through the winding paths that were sure to get them lost...
Shaking rather suddenly, Hermione got up.
"I have to go..." she said, her face turning pale.
"Hermione wait!" said Aquarius, his usual good natured expression very sad and very solemn.
"Your friend" he continued. "It wasn't wolves that killed her; it was something else wasn't it?"
Hermione said nothing.
Continuing, Aquarius said "listen, all I want you to know, is that I am not like them, Okay? I will never be as bad as them..." he was saying this more to himself than to Hermione.
"I told, my parents that it was a wolf, because I knew they wouldn't believe me and it made it seem all more plausible" she whispered looking down at her feet. Normally she was enthusiastic to make new friends, but after the incident two years back, she had not gotten used to trusting people again.
Aquarius took a deep breath, "Hermione, listen." He said looking at her squarely in the eyes."I just want you to say yes, or not even that, just nod...there were two girls in that woods..."
Hermione closed her eyes, willing herself to listen.
"...their names were Estella and Iris" he finished and Hermione nodded, in her memory stirred the awakening of nightmarish memories.
"What I want to know" said Aquarius breaking her train of thought. "how did they do it..."
"What were they to you?" asked Hermione.
"They are my sisters and still are, regardless what I think of them." He said sadly.
Hermione sat down beside him again, she had blocked the scene out for two years and now it was time to revisit it once again.
"Your sisters stood over my friend in the woods over there" she said pointing to the woods. "I asked to play with them and A-Alyssa didn't want t-to, but we followed them into the forest...I mean they were only children, what could they do to us...and then they sort of stood over Alyssa and looked d-down at her...then she started to twitch and she sort of looked like she was h-having a fit" Hermione had to stop because the overwhelming emotion to cry was becoming all too much.
Both were silent and in the distance Hermione saw her parents coming out of the fish shop. "I have...have to go..." she walked, no ran away, hopping she would never come into contact with any of the children that lived in the manor.
Silence followed Aquarius, pure silence, he knew his siblings were bad, but this bad? And little Iris, capable of something like this? All of the sudden the bright sunny day became a whole lot darker.
just plain favouritism" hissed Ceph, whom was furiously staring at nothing, with a mixture of hatred and aggression.