Chapter Five

A/N: Thanks to LillyPhoenix, as always, for reviewing.

For Anastasia, or so she had become accustomed to being named, the next three years passed with a great amount of ease. Life at Hogwarts was not as difficult to settle into as she had expected it would be, and within a month, she was highly regarded among all of the professors at the school, particularly the headmaster.

However, for Minerva, life had not quite been so easy. Each day when she woke in her bed, though she was truly for what she had received, the woman could not help but think of Narcissa's family, back when she had been Narcissa. To think that their child, that they had loved and cherished, had been taken from them, and that she had been responsible for taking her away from them. She had never felt more guilt for anything in all the years she had lived, yet every time she saw the child smile, or perform the slightest piece of the magic which she could not yet control, it all seemed to have been worth the pain.

Often, when she looked at her young 'daughter', the Scottish woman wondered if she truly remembered her sisters, and the family that she had used to know. She was still young at the age she was now, but when her home had burnt down, and her parents with it, she had been but two years old. How could she possibly recall something from so long ago?

However, Minerva knew that it was probably not the fact that Anastasia may remember her sisters that bothered her, though it certainly did do so. It was the fact that, should she recall the details of her former life, the young girl may turn away from her, or worse, even hate her guardian for her part in separating them. Given the amount she had come to truly love the child, the woman had found that this was what she feared the most.

The main reason that was she was thinking of this was the fact that Bellatrix, the elder of the girl's trueborn sisters, was to begin attending Hogwarts as a student that coming September, something that could put the entire relationship she had built up with her adoptive daughter in jeopardy. While she may have been the one that Anastasia thought of as a mother, or at least the only mother she had known, Bellatrix was her own flesh and blood. To her, she would always be Narcissa, and it would not be difficult to convince the child of the girl she had once been, as she remembered next to nothing about the life she had lived previous to the one she had at Hogwarts.

However, as September drew ever closer, Minerva was shocked to find that she and her young ward grew closer with it. It was almost as if the girl herself sensed that a divide was coming to break them apart, and wished to remain as close as possible to the woman she called a mother, in an attempt to keep them from separating at all, as if clinging to her would make it all alright. 'She is still so young.' Minerva thought, truthfully enough. 'Of course she believes that clinging to me will make it all alright. That is what I would have believed at her age, after all.'

The sudden sound of her bedroom door being opened brought the woman swiftly from her thoughts, and she raised her head from the window, which she had been glancing out of for the past few minutes, staring in longing at the Scottish moors, as she always did when contemplating something important, to make herself feel a little less homesick, which had been the main issue when she had first started to do so, back when she had been in her first year at Hogwarts herself.

Around the edge of the time worn mahogany, a flash of blonde hair appeared, bringing a smile to the professor's face that had been absent ever since the previous evening, when the news of Bellatrix had first come to her attention.

"Hello, Annie." Minerva greeted, beckoning the child into the room. She entered a little hesitantly, shutting the door behind her.

"Good morning, Mum." she responded, smiling faintly as she sat down beside the woman on the window seat. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, sweetheart. I'm alright." the woman answered, not altogether truthfully, but she did not wish to give away the secret of the young girl's sister, and she knew that, should she answer in the negative, Anastasia would wish to know why. "Are you?"

"Yes." she told her mother, a little too quickly, then continued at the professor's raised eyebrows. "Well, I was just wondering something, about a dream I had last night."

"What were you wondering, sweetheart?" Minerva was a little confused by the statement her adoptive daughter had made, as she was not giving much away. However, she was more than shocked at the question she girl asked in response.

"Was I always called Anastasia? Anastasia Selwyn?" she asked, in quite a soft voice. "Because I had a dream, and in the dream, someone was calling out to me. A woman, with blonde hair and blue eyes, like me. She called me Narcissa."

Suddenly, the woman could hardly breathe. Anastasia, or so she had been called, not for her life, but for only a three year period, was beginning to remember the girl she had been previously. In a dream or otherwise, she was beginning to remember, and now Minerva felt more threatened than ever by her sister.

When Narcissa had first come to her, the Transfiguration professor had gone to see her sister in law, the wife of her younger brother, Malcolm McGonagall, and asked her whether or not she would give permission for Narcissa to be given the surname that the woman had held before her marriage, which had been Selwyn. The woman had agreed wholeheartedly, only wishing to make life better for the poor child, and she had also suggested the first name, Anastasia, to give her a whole new start at Hogwarts.

However, when Minerva had returned to the castle, she returned to a frightened young child who did not seem to know anything about the world she had entered into, the cause of which later being found to be a memory charm cast by the Ministry.

The woman had opened her mouth to say this to her adoptive daughter, to confess it all to her and explain that the dream had been of the mother she was meant to have known. And she wished that she had done. But she did not. Instead, she answered in a simple, falsified sentence.

"No, Annie. You've always been you."

A/N: Uh oh, ripples are emerging! Please review!