After reading the book and looking around online I noticed that I may have messed up on the timing of Norbert the hatchling. It's not too bad of a mess up but it means that the hatchling flew the coop a week earlier than usual.
Chapter 22: Rifts and Funerals
Meissa slowed to a jog when the shores of the lake finally came to view. To her right was the clearing where she tended to hide out at - the one Hermione and her godfather often found her at. To her left led to a path that would eventually circle around the entirety of the Great Lake.
She wanted to give her private spot a chance. But at the same time Daphne would have chosen a place that Meissa would know right off the top of her head. Unless…
It would be one of the few times where Meissa would want to curse herself for being unable to cast a simple spell without hurting herself. It made her wonder for just a second if this is what it is like for Squibs.
Muttering to herself she looks between the two paths and decided that she should check the right path first. If Daphne wasn't to be found there then it would mean she'd have a long trek ahead of her.
A short walk later found Meissa standing at the edge of the clearing, looking at Daphne as she sat at the shore. She was absolutely still, the wind moving her hair the only sign of life in the blonde. It was oddly reassuring for her - like maybe a small part of her was wondering if she got cursed by the same thing.
"Daphne," she walks over to her friend, sitting down next to her.
"Meissa."
"Did you get hurt during Walpurgis Night?"
"No," the blonde answered shortly.
"Are you angry that I was not careful?"
"We were all drunk on magic that night," Daphne mutters quietly, refusing to look at Meissa.
The raven haired girl glances over at her friend, something clicking into place. "You're upset that you left my side during the celebrations."
"You're being presumptuous."
"You're not denying it."
"I have to deny that?"
"It's the only thing that makes sense," the Black heiress mumbles. "I'm just worried."
"It's nothing first time we go a day without talking."
"I thought we wanted to change that."
"I'm not angry."
"Not at me. Maybe at yourself."
"Would you stop doing that?" Daphne exclaims as she twists around to look at the raven haired girl. "I just - You nearly died! Zabini's mother nearly killed you!"
"I know that."
"I can't even tell, Meissa! You're not acting like someone who just escaped Death's grasp!"
"How am I supposed to act, Daphne?!" Meissa snaps back, dark eyes narrowing at the blonde. "Just cause my mother was a Death Eater doesn't mean that I know how to behave!"
They glared at each other for a long moment before Daphne cracks first, looking away towards the lake.
"I'm sorry, I didn't…. I just hate that you were targeted in a place where we should've been safe."
"Or as safe as we could have possibly been," Meissa injects. The side glance the blonde shot the raven haired brunette told her that it was not appreciated. Even if it was true.
"You came back to Hogwarts after the Yule holidays, recovering from something you never told me about." Meissa opened her mouth to remark that she could barely remember but refrained when Daphne waved her off with a tired sigh. "And when we should've been safe during Walpurgis Night you were targeted."
"Daphne, where are you going with this?"
"I just… I don't like that you're getting hurt."
"… It's, I can't possibly promise I won't get hurt."
"I know… But it doesn't possibly change how I feel about it."
Meissa stares at her for a long moment, unsure of how to proceed. She didn't want to leave Daphne to this state of mind - she knew it would do neither of them any good. Yet she knew that there was just no possible way for her to promise that she'd be safe for the rest of the year - she knew that because of who her mother is she'll constantly be forced to deal with enemies. Not only that but there is also the addition that she had, in essence, taken it upon herself to watch after Harry Potter.
As much as she hated Potter before their first year she had to admit to herself that he had no control over the events that left both of them essentially orphaned. She knew that he had it worse than her - both of his parents were dead while one was locked away and the other was missing.
At least with her there was a chance of her ever encountering her mother - even if she's to be in Azkaban for life.
"What do you propose we do?"
"Go on as we normally do?" Daphne mutters quietly.
"Before or after we decided to change how we deal with our reactions to things?"
"After."
Meissa peers at her friend for a long moment before she stood up, dusting off her trousers. "Well, let's go then."
"What?"
"You said it yourself, Daphne, let's go on as we always do," she states simply, holding her hand out for her friend.
Daphne smiled slightly at the raven-haired girl and with seemingly no effort from her friend, she was pulled up onto her feet. With a smile she held onto Meissa's hand as they started walking back to the castle until she sensed that the other girl had reached her limit for touch and only then did she let go.
~MJB~
On Friday morning, only two days after Walpurgis Night, Meissa was studying her notes for Transfigurations when she heard footsteps on the stairs. Glancing up at the time she realized that it was just about time for people to start waking up and preparing for another day of school.
What she did not expect was for Draco to make an appearance, his hair not yet slicked back with gel.
"Morning," she greets him from her corner of the common room. Her words startling her cousin from whatever he seemed to be thinking about.
"Meissa! What are you doing up at this hour?" he exclaims, his eyes wide as he stared at her.
"I've been up for hours, Draco. The question is, why are you up?"
"It's nothing."
"That's a load of dragon dung if I ever heard one," she remarks drily.
"Don't you have something to do," he tries to dismiss.
"Nice try, cousin." She sets aside her notes and looked at him fully. "Just what do you plan on doing, mm?"
"I'm hurt that you would think that I am scheming to do something."
"It's something you would do," Meissa retorts lightheartedly. "In fact, I would hazard a guess and say that you plan on doing something that would land Potter and his friends into trouble."
Draco had nothing to say in response to that.
He didn't have time to formulate a response anyway when the entryway to the common room opened up and Snape stepped in. He glanced over the room once before he located Meissa and Draco in a corner.
"Meissa," he called once he found her, his hand withdrawing a small brown papered wrapped package from a pocket while the other produced his wand. With a gesture of his wand the small, palm sized package was returned to its usual size, which was large enough to take up the surface of the small table in the common room.
Meissa immediately recognized the package for what it was and went over to him. "This is more than usual," she remarks after she had a chance to look inside. Inside was about two month's worth of potions that she's to be taking every day. As well as another month's worth of her migraine potions. Which was fortunate considering that she was just about to run out.
"I will not have time to brew them next month with the exams taking place."
She nods in acceptance to this news and sealed the package back up. "Is there anything else?" she inquires when she saw that he hadn't taken his leave yet.
"You are to report to my office at six tomorrow morning and we will floo over to the Malfoy Manor. From there we will portkey to the funeral ceremony. I do not believe we will be back before nightfall so plan accordingly."
"What about me?" Draco asks, "I mean, she was my aunt too."
"Your mother has not secured permission for you to leave Hogwarts for the funeral. So you will have to remain here. She, however, did request that I pass along a message."
"What is it?"
"She says, and I quote, 'Dragon, use your time wisely and study for your year-end exams'."
Draco turned beet red while Meissa was fighting off a bout of sniggers. She knew that he hated being called Dragon by anyone except his mother - even if the person using the nickname was relaying a message to him.
"You know where to find me if you have any questions," Severus tells Meissa before he turns and left the common room. Just in time as Meissa could just make out the sounds of the other Slytherins getting ready for class.
"The nerve of her," Draco grumbles as he sat down on the couch, ignoring the amused looks he was getting from his cousin. "Why didn't she get permission for me to attend the funeral? We both attended Uncle Arcturus' funeral, so why am I missing this one?"
"Do you honestly want to attend this one?" Meissa retorts, flicking a bang out of her face. "Cause, Draco, I didn't get the impression you were looking forward to attending another 'boring' funeral of some relative you've never met."
Draco doesn't respond to that at all, choosing instead to go back to his dormitory for his things. Leaving Meissa alone in the room as she thought about the family tree.
She could just barely remember the family tree in 12 Grimmauld Place, the home of her Great Aunt Walburga. She was only five when her Aunt Walburga passed away and she was sent to live with her Godfather - despite the fact that he was in the middle of the first term and was by no means ready to care for a five years old child.
But what little she could remember of the tapestry was this one detail: seven scorches marred the tapestry that depicted the last six generations. Seven possible lines of heirs, removed from the tree for the actions of one person.
She couldn't even fathom what happened even further back along the family line.
For all she knew there could be lost lines to the family, dismissed cause they didn't fit the creed of the family.
She still didn't understand why her grandfather told her to find her own meaning of the motto but for now she's settled on it meaning that she needs to be honest to herself and to her beliefs. She's seen what the family obsession with blood purity has done to them and wanted to change the family, bring the name Black back to the limelight.
The Black family needed to change. It's come too far to die now.
~MJB~
Meissa stood in front of the mirror, tugging on her robes uncomfortably, trying to adjust it to no apparent success. She half wished that Friday had gone on forever if only to avoid the funeral that she had to attend soon.
The classes had gone by too fast in her opinion. And Draco looked far too excited about something after Ron had to go to the Hospital wing, his hand having swollen to twice its usual size. Meissa hadn't spoken with the Gryffindors since Hermione helped Daphne with the potion but nothing she said indicated that they were involved in something dangerous.
Of course she hasn't forgotten about the fact that Hagrid has a rapidly growing dragon in his wooden cottage. If she had to bet any money she would say that Weasley has been bitten by the dragonling…
Oh.
"So that's what got him all giddy," Meissa mutters to herself, turning away from the mirror as she considered her cousin's behavior.
"What are you going on about?" Daphne asks from where she was studying the various hair care potions she had set out on the counter. After she heard about the funeral she was to be attending she declared that it was time they tackled Meissa's unruly mane. In the raven haired girl's opinion it wasn't that unruly but she suppose that in comparison to the blonde's sleek hair it was a bit unmanageable.
"Do you remember Draco being all excited about something just before our last class yesterday?" Meissa asks instead, "When Weasley left for the Hospital wing just before class."
"Of course, Weasley's hand looked horrible. But what does his hand has to do with your cousin?"
"I think… Draco knows something."
"Like what?"
"I'm not sure but considering everything that has happened lately with the grounds keeper and Potter…"
"Oh right, he knows about the dragonling, right?"
"Mhm, stands to reason that whatever is wrong with Weasley has something to do with the dragonling which in turn," Meissa starts, reasoning it out in a low voice, her eyes keeping a look out for eavesdroppers.
"Would make Draco excited cause it means he has evidence that they're up to something," Daphne concluded with a light laugh. "Should we do something?"
"No. I don't want you getting into trouble without me around."
"I can handle myself without you."
"I know, but we're friends. If one of us is going to get into trouble might as well bring the other."
"Are you sure you shouldn't have been in Hufflepuff?"
Meissa huffed at the blonde, earning a light giggle from her.
"So we leave Draco and the Gryffindors alone today?" Daphne reconfirms as she selects a bottle from her selections. "Now, let's get to work!"
The Black heiress sighs reluctantly and undid the ponytail she had put her hair in, her long hair falling onto her shoulders in thick curls. She still didn't see a point in this…
~MJB~
Meissa nearly ran down the stairs with Daphne right on her heels, her wand in hand as she cast one last spell on the other girl's hair. The loose ringlets, instead of settling into their usual tangled messes, sorts themselves into an elaborate hairstyle.
"See you when you get back!" Daphne calls after the girl just before the door slid to a shut behind her.
Meissa didn't have time to say anything to her friend - the hair potions having taken longer than either of them expected to tame her hair and now she ran the risk of being late to her godfather's office.
She just barely made it to his office before the clock struck six, though the unimpressed look he got from her godfather told her that next time she'd to be early to be considered on time.
As much as she hated her dress robes she would rather wear them instead of the gown she had on. In her mind a dress robe was the lesser of two evils - she's never been one to wear a proper gown as a child and she really didn't want to start now. However, her aunt had been insistent about the matter and unfortunately her godfather had sided with her on it.
She was to wear a floor length gown with a lace up bodice over the gown. The sleeves of the dress nearly flowing past her hands - sufficiently shielding her wand and its holster from sight. Her traveling cloak clasped at the base of her neck - the fastenings modeled after the family's crest - and shielded most of her outfit from a person's gaze.
As appropriate for a funeral her gown and cloak were mostly black - the only coloring being the hint of red along her bodice. Matching the family's crest and signifying to which Noble and Most Ancient House she belongs.
While Meissa was dressed properly as a girl, Severus was wearing his usual dress robes - a form fitting, long sleeved, black button up coat with matching pants with his usual white button up shirt underneath the coat along with his long floor length robes. She actually envied him some for no one would expect him to wear a gown - then again the mental image of him in one… it was a bit disturbing for the eleven year old to even envision this so she cast it out of her mind.
"Come, we are due to arrive at the Malfoy Manor," she hears him snap, snatching her out of her thoughts with his words. She looks up to find that he was holding the tin that held the floo powder out to her and took a pinch.
She tosses the power into the fireplace before stepping into the green flames as she proclaimed, as clear as day, "MALFOY MANOR!"
~MJB~
Meissa stares blankly at the casket that held her Great Grand Aunt. The ceremony was finally over, the spells cast, and now all was left was to place her in the crypt with the rest of the Black family. The entrance kept safe within the ancient home of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. It was a task taken care of by her Aunt Cissy but with her intention to take on the responsibilities of the House, Meissa had - upon being informed of their aunt's death - requested she accompany her aunt in the task.
It had taken some time to persuade her aunt but she had managed and for the first time in recent memory she accompanied her aunt to the ancestral manor of the House of Black.
It was fairly large and calling it a manor was actually inadequate. It was honestly similar to a castle but nothing as extravagant as Hogwarts' castle. While Hogwarts' castle had many floors, towers, and attached courts, the Black Castle - as it was titled by an ancestor - is strongly built and layered with protection spells, wards, and traps to resist an invasion of both wizard kind and muggles.
The castle had two lines of defense. The outer ward and the inner ward. The first line was of twelve towers built in at strategic points to provide a view in every direction and two gatehouses. The second line was a similar wall that instead had six massive towers and two large D-shaped gatehouses. In between the two wards were, from what little she could recall from her one visit back when she was five, lavish gardens tended to by a host of house elves.
Within the last line of defense was the castle's hall and Keep itself.
Meissa was never quite sure if the Keep is where the family was expected to live or the Hall. It all got a bit confusing in her mind but she understood that once past the inner ward and the traps, they would be within the very center of the Black Castle.
"Meissa, don't dawdle," she hears her aunt calls back to her, having apparently gone ahead of her while Meissa was looking around at the gardens - filled with all sorts of plants, mundane and magical. "I don't want the wards to identify you as an intruder," Narcissa continued as she made her way to the Keep's double doors, leaving Meissa to catch up with her.
"Don't the wards have blood identifiers?" Meissa inquires, hurrying up.
"They do but accidents have been known to happen," Narcissa explains. "The wards are old, going back at least four to five centuries ago."
Meissa looks at her aunt, thinking quickly, "So that means that the blood identifiers needs to be updated if they're that old."
"I would not trouble much with it - the spells have fallen into disuse since the mid-1800s. I doubt there is a text out there that has them."
Meissa believed her on that aspect, but the blood wards still needed to be updated and modified to prevent anyone who is remotely related to the Blacks through relatives from being able to access a property. She mentally puts it down as one of the things she'll need to do once she gain access to the financial records.
Refreshing the wards on all the properties seem like a priority to her. Although making sure that everything was all sorted would take some time in her opinion. A House as old as the Blacks was bound to have more than a handful estates and vaults - that was another thing she needed to check on.
She vaguely remembers someone talking about a vault being set up for the members of the Black family. She also remembers that if the member in question marries into another family that the children of this person would be able to access the vault. So she wonders if the family in question would still be able to access that particular vault despite the fact that the owner and their children are dead.
She'd be extremely annoyed if she discovered that the families - like the Bulstrode or even the Rosier, especially the Rosiers - still have access to vaults that should have been closed the moment the children have passed away. She has heard about what an Evan Rosier did as a Death Eater and she was vaguely sure that he was related to her family in some way - the idea of money from a Black vault funding Rosier's activities was sickening. It almost seem to make her mother seem tame in comparison.
She knew that her mother favored using the torture curse, Crucio, but Evan Rosier - from what she had read of the war - was fond of a curse that would boil the victim's blood within their bodies. That was a fate far worse than a Crucio. The torture curse was mostly mental and, in comparison to the blood boil curse, merciful.
"Meissa," she hears an exasperated voice call out, snapping her out of her thoughts. She barely has time to look around as she raced to catch up with her aunt once again, ignoring the open space that was the inner ward. The imposing Keep that sat in the middle of the inner ward had a distinctive gothic architecture to it, with its' pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses.
"Aunt Cissy," Meissa starts once she was walking side by side with her, "What are those?" She points up towards the statues she had seen.
"Gargoyles," Narcissa answers with barely a glance at them. "One of our ancestors believed it would do us good to have gargoyles to protect our ancestral home."
"Wait, I thought they were simply statues that gained intelligence from a spell?"
"Those are imitations. The proper gargoyles, like the ones we have, has been our guardians since the days before Hogwarts." Meissa looks up towards them in awe. "For the moment you cannot talk to them - they are stone by day and our guardians by night."
"Wow," the young heiress mutters. "Will I ever get a chance to talk to one of them?"
"…It will depend on when we finish the ritual."
Meissa nods her head once to show that she understood and off they went, the doors to the Keep opening upon their approach, signifying that the blood wards recognized and accepted them as legitimate members of the Black family. Her aunt steps into the Keep first, the simplistic stone casket following after her with a gesture of her wand, and Meissa trails along behind her.
Wide eyes taking in the sights of her ancestral home. The inside of the Keep, from the look of the Entrance Hall, seems to consist of stone. The walls and flooring done in a dark coloring - black obsidian if she had to hazard a guess. Portraits decorated the Hall, starting by the doors of the Keep and spanning further into the building. A glance at the nearest one told her a few things: 1) they were not magicked into moving, 2) the family seemed to have black hair and equally black eyes even in the earliest days.
Each of the portraits were interesting and underneath them was a plaque, each one identifying the person within the portraits. Sometimes there were more than one person within a painting, some looked like siblings while some looks like a couple.
But mostly the portraits consisted of a person and she could hazard a guess that the person in question was the head of the family for that particular generation.
"Keep up Meissa," Narcissa called back to her, "I don't want the Keep's guardian to mistake you for an intruder."
"There's more than one guardian?" the girl asks as she glances down a darkened corridor. Either her eyes were playing tricks on her or there was something in the shadows. With an ominous feeling building inside her she hurries after her aunt, deciding that it wasn't worth discovering what lurks in the darkness of the Keep.
She followed her aunt down to the other end of the Entrance Hall where a door sat in the corner, seemingly tucked away. As she stood off to the side she watched her aunt wave her wand a few times, in an elaborate pattern she knew she had no hopes of recalling later, and saw a complex set of runes appear on the dark ebony wood. While she had some experience with the modern, ancient, and family versions of the runes she knew from a glance that there was no way she would be able to discern the meaning of them with what little she knew.
Not only was it not enough time for her to get the full meaning of the set there was a distinctive feeling in the back of her mind that the family runes were only a small piece of the puzzle. She wasn't sure what else she needed to know if she wanted to solve it but that was the gut feeling she had about it.
It was a heptagon with seven sets of runes at each corner. Within the heptagon sat a large complex set of runes that had started glowing white the moment of its' appearance.
While she was pondering this her aunt Narcissa had reached out with her wand and tapped the seven corners of the rune. As she looks on the set of runes began to twist and turn. With each click a set fell into place and the complex runes in the center began to dim.
When all seven sets had finally settled the glow was gone and there was an audible click of the door unlocking.
"That's a complex lock," she remarks drily, finally realizing what it was meant to do.
"Our ancestors was the one who found our ancestral home. They were the one who started this tradition," Narcissa explains as the door swung open, finally granting them access. "Each generation has been tasked with learning how to unlock the crypt so that it may never disappear should something unforeseeable should happen."
"So… I take it that I'll be learning that soon?"
"You and your cousin Draco if I had my way."
Meissa doesn't say anything in response to that - knowing that so long he was a Malfoy heir he would never learn the secrets of the Black family. Such was the laws of the family.
She followed her aunt down into the crypt, the torches lighting up as they made their descent into the depths of the family's past.
The first landing opened up to a fairly large room, with only one coffin resting in the exact middle of the space with various items scattered about. In each corner sat a torch, casting the bare minimum of light across the room. "Who's this?" she asks in curiosity.
"No one in recent memories know. They can only speculate that whoever it is, they were very important to the family in the ancient days," Narcissa answers, her wand casting a light across a nameless plaque. But it did have something inscribed that read as: 'Child born out of time - call to one who does not answer -.' The rest looked like it has been rubbed away.
"That's an odd line," she comments. "What does it mean, 'born out of time'?"
"Perhaps they were born too early or too late?"
Meissa frowns thoughtfully at the coffin - why had it been alone? And why such an odd phrase? Unfortunately she couldn't ponder about this for too long for her aunt was already moving down the next flight of stairs, going deeper into the belly of the earth.
~MJB~
So the last two chapter had a cliffie and I get a feeling that this one would probably qualify for it as well. I'm really sorry!
Another thing I want to note is that we're not too far away from the end of book one. And while I do have a week or two off from school for the summer I'll be back in the thick of it again until maybe winter. While it doesn't mean that the story will be done for it does mean that updates may be slow.