"So why are we here again?" Elijah asked me.

We were standing in the Receiving room at the old house near Richmond. The same house where we had met just a week before. I had started a fire in the fireplace and was waiting for it to burn brightly.

"I had a thought that the floo might still be connected to Malfoy Manor. It's customary to have all the Malfoy houses connected, saves time on dealing with immigration regulations. I checked and it's still in my mother's name, so I'm thinking it is. I'm hoping it is."

"And why is that?" Elijah asked.

"My boyfriend's family lives in Europe, it'll be super easy to floo to Malfoy Manor and then we can apparate to the Burrow. Unless Draco has finally gotten the floo set up between the Manor and the Burrow."

"The Burrow?"

"Yeah, that's what the Weasley's call their place. I'm not sure why."

Elijah stopped and stared at me. "You're dating a Weasley"

"Um, yes. Is that a problem?" I squirmed a little wondering if he had something against the Weasleys as well.

"No, I'm just surprised. The Malfoys and the Weasleys have never seen eye to eye. Not enemies per say but not friends either." My father said.

"Well for the last, oh I don't know 30+ years they've been trying to kill each other." I said nonchalantly.

"I'll ask again. Are you sure you have good judgment?" My father asked looking at me incredulously.

I smiled sheepishly. I had an ex-husband who had his humanity turned off during our marriage and a boyfriend belonging to the enemies of my family. It sure didn't seem like I had good judgement, did it? I didn't respond, opting to test the floo, by fire calling my distant cousin, Draco. I threw some floo powder into the fire and stuck my head into the flames.

"Draco!" I called.

"Stella?" He answered almost immediately. "Where are you calling from?" He asked confused.

"An old Malfoy Property in Virginia, it's in my mother's name. I was wondering if my father and I could floo on over."

"You found your father?" Draco asked shocked, then he caught himself and cleared his throat. Malfoys were never supposed to reveal an emotion like shock to people. "I mean, of course you can. Let me talk to your father so I can invite him in."

I ducked out of the call and had my father take over. Draco swiftly invited my father into Malfoy Manor and my father stepped through, knowing the procedure for flooring from when he dated my mother. I grabbed a small bag that held all of our clothes for the trip. I had shrunk all our clothes and had placed an undetectable extension charm on it. I charmed the fire to burn out after I stepped through and followed my father through the floo stepping out at the Receiving room at Malfoy Manor.

"Draco, it's good to see you," I greeted him. "Have you met my father?"

"We were just doing introductions," Elijah spoke up.

Draco stepped forward and kissed my cheek. "It's lovely to see you again Stella."

"Stella?" Came a voice from the hallway. "Draco, is Stella here?" The owner of the voice entered the room, reveling none other than Narcissa Malfoy, Draco's mother.

"Cissa!" I greeted with a hug and a kiss. "Lovely to see you, I'd like you to meet my father, Elijah."

If Narcissa was surprised, she didn't show it. She just calmly greeted my father and asked us in for tea. We agreed and found ourselves in the private living area having tea with Narcissa, Draco, and Draco's wife Astoria. I had met Astoria a handful of times, she was a few years younger than Draco only recently marrying her in the last couple years.

"I'm glad you are dating Charlie," Narcissa told me. "We get to see you more often."

I laughed, "Yes, well England seems to be a good meeting place for us with him in Romania and I in the United States."

"Romania?" My father asked.

I nodded, "Charlie works at a dragon reserve in Romania."

My father stared at me incredulously. "Are you absolutely sure your judgement is sound?"

I blushed and pouted, "You keep saying that."

"Well, can you blame him?" Draco asked with a laugh. "I've always asked the same thing. Ex-Husband with no humanity, a Weasley for a boyfriend, the wild Weasley at that, a crazy ex-fiancé by the name of Tom Riddle aka the Dark Lord."

"The what!?" My father frowned. "Tell me you were not engaged to Lord Voldemort."

I looked down embarrassed, I wish I could have said otherwise. I was surprised he even knew about the Dark Lord, but I guess I shouldn't have been Voldemort had been trying to recruit vampires after all. "Well technically no, he wasn't using the name back then. At first he wasn't bad, but the more the years passed the worse he became. Sometimes I still wonder if he went bat shite crazy because I broke things off between us."

"How did you meet?" My Father asked.

"I had decided to go back to Hogwarts during the time Tom was a student. I entered as a 5th year, posing as Abraxas Malfoy's younger sister, who had been homeschooled do to a childhood illness that had taken years to recover from."

I stood up and wandered around the room as I spoke. I ended up staring out the window, looking at the peacocks wandering along the ground.

"I had been staying with Abraxas and his family since I stopped traveling with Uncle Nik. I never left the grounds in those years, so they would often extract themselves from public appearances siting me as a reason, which of course started rumors. Over the years we pieced together a story to explain who I was.
The time here was much needed, after traveling with Uncle Nik."

Elijah walked up beside me, looking out the window. "What happened when you traveled with my baby brother?"

I turned to look up at him. "Not much really. I suspect he was living rather subdued at the time. He had just daggered Aunt Bekah, and was running from Mikael. He let me travel with him because I could cloak us, but it was a dark time for him. It began to affect me, so I came here to recover." I sighed, and turned to look out the window again. "Then the rumors grew and so to silence them we came up with a story, and I started Hogwarts. Maybe that's why I fell in with Tom, I don't know. I do know Tom was a master of manipulation."

I pushed the thoughts of past years away with effort and turned back to the rest of the room. "Enough of this, now where is Scorpius?"

"Sleeping," Astoria replied, as grateful to be off the topic of the Dark Lord. "He'll be awake soon. I'm sure he'd love to see his Aunt Stella." She said with a smile.

I smiled at her, I could tell today was one of her better days. She had been weak ever since her and Draco's son had been born. Draco had told me it was due to an ancient curse placed on her family, that made having children difficult.

"Well, tell me what's been happening in the Wizarding World, Charlie tells me nothing." I said sitting down besides Astoria.

Draco smirked, "Well that's what you get fur dating a Weasley." He teased. I laughed lightly as he began filling me in on everything that he had heard. I knew he didn't get out much but he was a Malfoy, and a Malfoy always knew what was going on.

My father walked back over and sat besides Narcissa, and they began to talk quietly, later I found out their topic was me. Narcissa had told him that I had chosen that despite my dark past to move past it, not trying to change it or make up for it but just live life. It was true, I couldn't undo what had happened but I could overcome it, not forgetting it, not trying to make up for it, but by letting it shape me into a better person. A person touched by dark and light, creating a unique shade of gray, a balance between the two.