Children of the Gods

by inwardtransience

When the message came, there was little left of Cassiopeia Black in her — soon she would move on, shed her face and her name for another. But, at the last possible moment, she found a reason to carry on, the smouldering embers of her identity sparking to new life. Unfortunately, adopting the Boy Who Lived came with complications. (metamorphs, fairies, AU and very weird)

14. Violet Black — IV

March 1989

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There were a lot of things about the magical world Violet didn't really get, and it didn't help that mages could make things really complicated for no good reason sometimes. The noble family stuff was a good example of that.

She was still having meetings with Lord Arcturus about Black stuff, when she wasn't busy with school and they weren't travelling somewhere — and Violet did still feel a little guilty about being treated like she was a real Black and everything, but since Cassie was her mum now and everything she was close enough to a real Black, so only a little guilty. (Chloé said Lise, who was kind of sort of Violet's aunt and everything, was okay with teaching her Potter stuff, but Violet didn't want to meet her yet.) Mostly it was just, like, going to old Black stuff, like the castle in Brittany or one of the mausoleums outside Ancient House — a mausoleum was a big building to keep dead bodies in instead of burying them underground, and there were more than one because the House of Black was old — or in the library or whatever, and Lord Arcturus telling her stories about their history and old religious stuff and rules about family law or honour or whatever. She didn't have to convert to their old religion or anything, Lord Arcturus was just explaining the history, and Violet thought it worked, like, in magical law Houses were kind of like towns, and they had to follow county and national law, but the town also made their own laws and stuff? so Houses made up their own laws that only applied to people in the family, mostly to do with how their stuff was shared and used, it was really messy. And the stuff about how Blacks were supposed to act was all weird honour and duty stuff that she didn't really get, but it was explained in story form, which was at least interesting...

It was in one of the mausoleum trips that Violet learned the Blacks were actually important. Like, she did know that already, sort of? The Blacks had a seat on the Wizengamot, which was kind of like the House of Lords — except there was no magical House of Commons, so the lords and stuff still made the rules on this side — and the Potters did too, actually, but she knew the Blacks were always on it from the beginning like fifteen hundred years ago (which was a long time, the idea of England wasn't even that old), and she heard being one of the first families was important for some reason, and also that the Blacks were wealthy? Like, super wealthy, Mum didn't think twice about buying a house just because or throwing money around for whatever, they had enough money that she didn't even think about it. They weren't the richest magical family in the country, the Malfoys were wealthier, but it was still a lot of money.

She didn't know before that the Blacks were important even by super rich noble family standards...though she maybe might have guessed, if she thought about it. When people learned she was a Black, they were always like you mean those Blacks? and that she was a Black and a metamorph made sense because the Blacks got a lot of those, you know, there was Nymphadora and everything. And people knew all about Nymphadora Black, because she was super super famous, for basically the same reason Harry Potter was — she killed a Dark Lady, a long time ago.

Lord Arcturus told her the whole story, sitting in a room in one of the mausoleums, for Lord Henry and his daughter, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The House had been getting weaker and poorer for a few centuries, due to some wars going badly and feuds with other Most Ancient Houses — the Maddychs and Cadwalladers, both of which didn't exist anymore — Henry's parents had run away to the Continent for some reason. He grew up in the north, around Holland and Germany and Denmark, got married super young, but then his wife died when their first child was still a baby, and they had to run away again, this time to France — Lord Arcturus said he had to run because some people thought he killed his wife, but Henry's own writing said it was a local nobleman he didn't get on with, but there was no way the people in charge would side with Henry so he just ran. Henry finished his schooling at Beauxbatons, and then waited until his daughter Bellatrix finished too, and then moved back to Britain, quickly took over as Lord Black. (There was a rule in the family law that you could steal the title by beating the Lord of the House in a duel, but only in certain situations, it was complicated.) Then he quickly got to work putting the House back together, making all kinds of investments and things and making friends with both magical and normal people — they weren't separate yet back then — and after a few decades they were wealthy and important again. Wealthy and important enough that Henry became Chief Warlock, which was what the leader of the Wizengamot was called, meaning he was basically the magic Prime Minister.

Lord Arcturus said Lord Henry was super famous for, yes, taking the Blacks from having fallen apart and almost dying out to a really powerful family again, but also just for being scary good at politics. He had a thing where he adopted a bunch of muggleborns into the family, which was something some noble families did back then, even if it was odd to do it so much — there was a point where there were more adopted people in the family than people born Blacks. The trick Henry did was, as a trade for adopting their family members and other favours and stuff he did them, getting muggle workers and also magic people he helped out to spy for him. Important people really only cared what other important people thought, they just kind of ignored the staff and stuff, so they would say private things in front of them all the time...and then they would bring that stuff to Henry. There was a bit there where Henry knew everything about everyone, and nobody had any idea how. Henry basically controlled the entire magical part of the country, and even big parts of the muggle half, just because he had connections to everyone and knew everything that was going on, so could do the right thing in the right place at the right time.

Some people thought he was basically a super scary dictator, but his politics were actually pretty nice for the time — he didn't really care about class or anything, which was kind of a big deal for back then, and he was really generous with people on his side, so there were also a lot of people who really liked him. So, feelings about him were very mixed.

And he basically died a hero, so after that the mixed feelings turned into super positive praise and stuff. The Cromwell Violet heard mentioned before was a Dark Lady called Frances Cromwell — a muggleborn sister of the same Oliver Cromwell Violet heard of in muggle school, Lord Arcturus said. There was a big war and everything on the magical side too, the Cromwells got enough mages with them (mostly muggleborns, some guild people, a few of the younger noble families) that it went super super badly for the mages loyal to the Wizengamot. Lord Henry died fighting Frances Cromwell in a super famous duel on the Wizengamot floor, the duel bringing the whole building down around them, it had to be rebuilt almost from nothing after the war, which sounded, just, so scary, she'd seen plenty of duels by now but she couldn't imagine something that big, that was just mad.

The Cromwells ruled the country for a while, a lot of people dying, until the Dark Lady was killed in a duel by Lady Nymphadora — Lord Henry's granddaughter, who Blacks sometimes called just Grandmother, because she was a however-many-times-great-grandmother to all of them. (The House was short on people at first, and when Lord Henry adopted women he didn't make them get married if they didn't want to, but they needed babies, so they could volunteer to let Nymphadora get them pregnant if they didn't want to bother doing it some other way, which, Violet was pretty sure normal people would think that was weird? Every Black was from Nymphadora in some way or another, was the point.) There were rumours then that Nymphadora was kind of like Henry's "assassin" or something, making people he didn't like go away — Lord Arturus said there was some truth to that — and also people thought metamorphs were weird sometimes, so her reputation before was that she was kind of scary and super creepy. But then she killed the super scary Dark Lady, by herself, ending the war almost all by herself, and was suddenly a big beloved hero. Now, hundreds of years later, she and Lord Henry were two of the most famous mages in history, everyone in the country knew the stories about them.

Lord Arcturus said Lady Nymphadora was still alive out there somewhere — metamorphs didn't die of old age, but at a certain point they would just decide to move on, go somewhere else and be someone else. (Violet knew, Mum was close to doing that before she found Violet and changed her mind.) Sometimes a Black would try to get her attention somehow, if they needed help with something, but she never answered. At this point, he was pretty sure she never would.

So, that was why some people gave Violet funny looks sometimes, when they first met her. Some of it was just because she was weird, yes, but also, her great-great-a-few-more-times-grandparents were some of the most famous people in all of British history. And also the Blacks were also stupid rich, there was that too. There was also the thing with Mum's nephew Sirius at the end of the recent war, and, they were literally the most famous family in the whole country, there was a lot of history and stories and stuff around them, it was a whole complicated thing.

Violet expected the other noble kids were going to make a big deal about her for that reason. She wasn't looking forward to it.

Hogwarts was kind of a fancy school, it turned out, and while they did take all the muggleborns, if you grew up in the magic world you needed to have some special connection somehow to get in — most of the students were from noble families. Since the noble kids would also be super important when they grew up, because the nobility still ruled the country on the magical side, their parents thought it was important for them to know each other from super early. They all grew up together, basically, or at least met before school started. There were a couple groups of them who were homeschooled together, and they were invited to holidays and family events and stuff, so they could get to know each other before school. Mum said there was a lot of politics involved, kids whose parents were in the same political party or did business together were going to know each other better than kids whose families didn't get along, but everyone would meet, at some point.

Every once in a while, like maybe two times a year, all of the noble kids in their whole year would meet up — and sometimes some non-noble kids too, if they were important enough to be invited. Lord Arcturus said Violet should get introduced to all the other noble kids, and Mum was putting it off as long as she could, so Violet could get more used to the magical world, and being Violet, and stuff. (And also practising not-lying, Mum told Lord Arcturus about the fairy magic so he knew that was a thing.) But one of the big meetings had come up, Lord Arcturus insisted she had to go, and Mum agreed she might as well.

Violet was trying not to worry about it too much. It couldn't be too bad, could it? She would get to go with Susan, and she already knew some of the other kids who would be there, like Olivie and Tony and Fay — and also Draco, she guessed. And she got a super pretty dress special for it, and Mum said there would be tiny cakes! Yeah, she was sure it would go fine.

(She tried to convince herself of that, and it almost worked. It didn't help that she couldn't actually say it out loud — because she didn't really believe it, so that would be a lie.)

Susan stayed over at their house, because they were going together, but no Hannah — she was going to Hogwarts, but she wasn't invited this time. In the morning, they had breakfast like normal, and then just did whatever for a couple hours. Violet ended up working on a puzzle to pass the time, Susan reading one of Violet's books (one of the Gaelic kids' books she got for practice). The meeting wasn't actually at lunch time, but it was a very early tea, so they'd be skipping lunch. When it was time to get going they stopped in the kitchen for a little bit to have a quick snack, before all three of them went downstairs to have a bath. All three, because while the kids were having their silly little tea party thing the parents would also be talking, so Mum had to be there too.

Violet hoped she didn't end up in a duel with anyone this time.

Back upstairs, they split up to get dressed, Mum going to her room and Violet and Susan going to Violet's, where both of their things were already hung up. Sometimes fancy clothes you needed someone's help to get in them, ties in funny places and stuff — Mum could do her own with magic, but she couldn't touch Susan, so it made sense to split up this way. Violet hung up her bathrobe, and...um, there wouldn't be pants hanging with her dress, obviously, she went back to her drawers to fish out a fresh pair...

Susan was being a little awkward about the being naked thing, all stiff and turning her back and stuff. She was normally pretty awkward about baths too — they did have baths together pretty often when she was over, Susan being awkward was just less noticeable with water and bubbles and towels and stuff in the way. Violet knew, from watching people, that it was pretty normal for people to be embarrassed about this stuff, but she...didn't really get it? The first thought Violet had if someone was seeing her naked was that she was going to get in trouble for being a freak, because she wasn't supposed to be a girl, except Violet was supposed to be a girl — sometimes, on her bad days, she still had a little spark of fear that she was about to be punished for that, but normally it went away after a few seconds. She got embarrassed for all kinds of reasons, like her stammering, or getting someone's name wrong (Gaelic names were hard), or saying something funny and everyone looking at her in one of those awkward silences, but, if it wasn't one of those days when she was randomly sure Petunia was going to show up and drag her into a cupboard, she mostly didn't notice this one?

She wasn't sure why she should be embarrassed about it, honestly. She and Susan were friends, and they were just bodies, everybody had one, she didn't know what the big deal was...

But she could see it did make Susan uncomfortable, so she waited until they both had pants and a shift on before talking again. Susan's outfit for today was more old-fashioned, the funny robes that some magic people liked, and Violet's also looked old-fashioned to her, but wasn't so much on the magic side. Susan's had three parts, an ankle-length dress — sleeveless, showing the plain linen of her shift on her upper arms — a wide cloth belt to tie around her middle, and then a heavier over-robe part that went on top, with long baggy sleeves and a hood and everything. The dress was mostly a pleasant sky blue, with some curly gold stitching along the hems, the belt was super pretty, covered in beads, making a swirly spiralling design with blues and silvers and purples and black — a gift from the Hartrights, Susan said, another Mistwalker family, they would add to it as she got older so she could keep using it — the robe a pure snowy white, a few layers of edging on the hems, the easiest to see part a big three-armed spiral, each of the arms spinning off to make their own smaller spirals, in blue and gold, repeated over and over and over again. Susan said that was a super super old symbol found on lots of old stone monuments all over the Isles, it was really common on old stuff in the Sanctuary, so it ended up being used as a symbol of the Wizengamot — a Bones wearing it was kind of reminding everyone that the government was sitting on their land, don't forget. And also just implying the family was super old and special, she guessed, and also it had some religious meaning? Violet didn't know.

Susan also had gloves, of course — a pretty blue matching her dress this time — and the robe was thick and heavy, a layer of safe linen on the inside and the outside, between them a layer of thicker wool to fill it out a bit. It did look nice, the colours and the beads and the embroidery were pretty, but it was also made to help protect Susan from touching anything bad. Violet was told it was polite to take people's cloak or over-robe or whatever, but Susan would be keeping hers anyway, for Seer reasons. She would have to explain that, so their host didn't think she was being rude, which sounded annoying.

Violet's dress was very poofy. The part that went from her shoulders to her waist was a little closer — not, like, super tight or anything, just normal — the sort of yellow-orange base stitched with pretty green and red-purple leaves and a bunch of flowers in red and blue and white and purple, it was super pretty! The elbow-length sleeves were made out of a layer of a loose smooth silky cloth, felt nice and cool against her skin, the more orange of the body part faded to a soft sunny yellow, but the lacey bits (the same red-purple as some of the leaves) around the neck continued into a second layer all down the arms — the pattern in the lace was also flowers, but in negative, so it looked like the flowers were actually made with the white of her collar or the yellow of the sleeves, which was a neat trick. The skirt was made out of multiple layers of see-through tulle-looking stuff, stiff and swishy, the layers hissing when she moved, done in different colours in different places, all colours of the rainbow mixing together — except not mixing, staying their own colour even when they overlapped, because the colours were actually separate fabrics so your eye could still kind of see each colour even when laid over each other — when the layers shifted making different colours more obvious from different angles, so it seemed like the parts that were red or purple or green or blue moved around, the skirt always looking slightly different each time you looked.

Since it was her first public appearance, Lord Arcturus actually had to approve the dress — they had it made special, most fancy clothes were, and Mum already bought it, but he could say they had to get something else. He thought it was a bit eccentric. At first she thought he wasn't going to say it was okay, which was sad, because it was sooo pretty with the flowers and the colours and everything! and it was swishy and poofy, the layers of tulle making the skirt all big, and she loved it! (She felt really really girly in it, in a good way.) But after talking about it a little bit, he decided eccentric was actually fine — Blacks were important enough they could get away with being eccentric — and the always-changing rainbow effect of the skirt actually seemed like a very metamorph kind of thing, so, yeah, it was fine. She was so worried he would make her give it back — which he wouldn't have, even if she had to wear something else to the silly tea party she still could have kept the dress — when he said she could she was so excited she jumped up and hugged him without thinking about it.

He looked very surprised about it, Mum actually laughed at him — which, Violet guessed his face was kind of funny.

Since Susan was the one who felt awkward being not dressed proper, Violet helped her get her dress on first. It wasn't hard, there were just a couple ties in the back where Susan couldn't reach, holding it together. While Susan tied on the belt thing and pulled on her gloves, Violet pulled her own dress on over her head — straight off the hanger, so it didn't touch the ground at any point — Susan coming over to help with the ties on her back as soon as she had her gloves on. (Susan could touch Violet, but sometimes her clothes were bad for her.) Violet's dress actually had more ties than Susan's — Susan's was just held closed at a couple spots, but that was okay because she was never taking off the robe, Violet's had a flap that folded over to hide the seam, had to be tied in place on both sides. Violet tried not to move too much, it was hard — she liked this dress, felt all bouncy.

The skirt made little hissy swishy noises whenever Violet bobbed on the balls of her feet just a little — fwish fwish fwish fwish...

Though, when Susan was doing her ties, there was a problem: she couldn't get it to sit the way it was supposed to. The seams weren't lining up right, and the waist was a little too high. Violet frowned, closed her eyes to concentrate, and very carefully made herself a little bit smaller. Was that better? Yeah, that was perfect, just a second...

Violet must have gotten taller when Chloé made her older. She did know that, Susan seemed just a little shorter than she remembered, she just hadn't noticed it was a problem for the dress.

Once the ties were all done, it was time to do their hair — well, do Susan's hair, anyway, Violet just glanced in the mirror and smoothed the curls out a little bit, that was good enough. Susan's hair was really really pretty! Violet still loved this funny mixed red-blonde, she could never quite copy it right. They weren't doing anything special with Susan's hair, just plaiting it so it'd behave with her hood up. (Doing super complicated things with your hair was for teenage girls, it'd be odd for little girls to do too much.) Violet only kind of knew what she was doing, she didn't plait her own hair but she did Susan's and Lasairín's a few times? It took a couple tries to split it up into three bunches that looked right, and from there it was quick and easy, Violet got plenty of practice with this stuff in their textile craft lab. Susan's hair was bigger than the yarn she learned it with, but it was the same idea.

Violet pulled on some of her beaded bracelets, and— Oh crap, she forgot socks. She grabbed a pair quick and flopped down onto her bed, giggling at the way her skirt went floof, puffing up around her. Once they both had socks on, Susan pulled on her over-robe, and they left her room, Violet carefully picking down the stairs so she didn't slip.

Mum beat them downstairs, already sitting at the bench by the door pulling on her shoes. Mum was dressed more conservatively for mages than she usually did, since it was a nice event and she didn't want to make Violet look bad — Violet didn't get how A led to B, but Mum just said it like it was an obvious fact when they were planning their outfits, and Violet didn't like asking questions that made her feel stupid. The dress hugged close to her body, had one of those corset things, with loose draping sleeves and a long skirt, poofing out a little but not as much as Violet's. It didn't show as much under her throat or down her back as a lot her dresses did, and the skirt was longer, and it was heavier and thicker than Mum's clothes tended to be, but apparently this was better for formal stuff? Whatever. Mum's shoes had heels — Violet didn't have to do that yet, at least academy-age was appropriate.

She thought some of the heeled boots and stuff she saw were super pretty, and she liked the way they clicked on hard floors, but she could wait until she was old enough.

Glancing up at them, Mum smiled. "Well, aren't you two adorable. Go ahead and get your shoes on and we'll get going."

"I had to make myself smaller," Violet said. "I haven't tried this on since b-b-before the potion."

Mum frowned, thinking. "As long as you only tried to make yourself smaller, you shouldn't be any younger. If you're worried about it I can check quick — we have a couple minutes before we have to leave."

"That might be a g-g-g-g– smart idea."

"All right." Mum finished tying off her shoes, popped up to her feet. "I'll get the test papers, be back in a second."

While they were waiting for Mum to get back, Violet and Susan went ahead and put on their shoes. The boots Violet was wearing she'd had for a few months now, and they were a little too small to be comfy — she shrunk her feet down a little to fit. She rolled her shoulders, squirming on the bench, something didn't feel quite right, she closed her eyes and carefully imagined her ankle and foot and toes, everything the right size and shaped right, and pushed the thought out— She sighed at the click feeling of her body fitting together right, turned back to tying her boots.

Mum came back before too long, sank down to sit next to Violet on the bench — Susan got up to give her room. She flipped open a familiar tiny little book, sheets about three inches to a side, finding the first fresh page. Before Mum could say she needed a drop of blood, Violet was already holding out a hand, fingertips up.

Mum had been doing this test about once a month for around a year and a half now, since her first December here. She did explain it at the time, that she was just making sure Violet was ageing the way she was supposed to — Violet never gave it much thought, Mum just pricked her finger once a month after breakfast, not a big deal. It only became a big deal when it became very very obvious that Violet had stopped ageing at all.

Now, Violet had known that was something that was going to happen eventually — the very first day they met, Mum mentioned that metamorphs didn't die of old age, they just stopped ageing at some point. She just thought it would be...later? Not when she was eight.

Mum brought this book of tests with them the last time they saw Chloé, last month, she had the pages marked with when she took them and how old she guessed Violet was. Like, not how long she'd been alive, but how old her body seemed like it was. People didn't grow up exactly the same, so it could be hard to tell, but by comparing with the other tests she could guess. That first test, in December of '87, Mum guessed Violet was seven and a half — which was about right, she would have turned seven earlier that year. For her test of July '88, she thought Violet was a little younger than eight, but not too much. By her test in January of '89, Violet was only maybe a month older than in July of '88, and she didn't get any older by March. Chloé did her own tests and agreed with Mum — Violet was over eight and seven months by then, but Chloé's tests said she was only about seven years and ten months old (even younger than in Mum's tests) — and they spent the rest of the appointment talking about what they were going to do about that.

One option was to do nothing, just leave it alone. As Violet's friends grew up around her, Violet would want to grow up too, and just wanting to would, they hoped, make her magic make her older all by itself. She would lag behind her friends now and then, but she should catch up. That's how metamorphs always did it before they understood how bodies worked better, so it could work...but it could also be risky. Wishing herself older, her magic might mess something up, or bits of her body might not age up right in the right order, there could be accidents, which could cause health problems. (There were reasons most metamorphs didn't used to live long enough to grow up.) Also, they didn't know how doing it that way would mix with her fairy magic. It was an option, but Mum and Chloé both agreed it was a bad option.

Another option was what Mum's mum did with her: teach her how bodies worked in exact detail, including how ageing worked, and make herself age up right. This was very complicated, and would take a lot of lessons so she could learn everything — Mum's mum could only teach her because she was a bioalchemist, a special kind of alchemist who also did healing stuff — and she would also have to keep track of what she was doing and make sure she kept on schedule. The plus side was that she would understand her body very very well by the end, and could make sure everything was working right all the time (Mum never fell ill or got sore or anything, this was why), but the minus side was that it was so much stuff to learn, and keeping track of it would take a lot of notes and special care. Chloé thought doing it that way was totally mad, and Mum didn't recommend it either. She did like how much control she had over all the little fiddly bits in her body, and how she could play with the little things, but it was very hard to learn, not sure it was worth it.

The last option was Chloé's favourite, she thought it was the safest, Violet agreed to do that one. Her appointments with Chloé were changed from every three months to once a month, and Chloé would give her a potion to age her up a month each time. (For most people, ageing potions were temporary, but metamorph magic made it real.) They would do a bunch of tests to make sure everything worked right, and then they would go home — that was it, Violet didn't actually have to do anything. She was still getting lessons in how bodies worked from Mum, but much more simple ones, mostly just basic anatomy, what everything was and how it fit together and stuff. So she could change things if she wanted without hurting herself, not for ageing herself up, just normal metamorph stuff. The tests were a little annoying, because she had to do them both as a girl and a boy — or, most of the tests they only did once, they only did the age blood test twice. Had to make sure her boy body was ageing right too, apparently? Violet wasn't sure why they would be different, but she wasn't the healer.

That meeting with Chloé was the first time Violet was boy-shaped in...she didn't know, a long time. It was obvious Chloé and Mum thought she would freak out or something, being all sensitive about it, but it wasn't that bad — it was uncomfortable but, like, having a sliver or something? She changed back as soon as she could, but it wasn't that big of a deal, they didn't need to be so silly about it.

That first time, Chloé wrote an order for a potion that aged Violet up all the time she was missing — when she took the potion, she aged about nine months in, like, fifteen seconds. It felt very very weird, her skin crawling and her insides squirming, she did not like it. They had to stay at a hotel in Toulouse overnight, and then come back to have a meeting with one of their alchemists, he quick checked Violet was fine before they went home. They wouldn't have to do that after every appointment, Chloé just wanted to have the tests to make sure nothing went wrong the first time. They were going back in a week and a half, if Violet had to do the nine months potion all over again (ten months now) she was going to be so annoyed...

Mum cast a spell to make Violet's hand go numb, and then made a tiny cut to take a drop of blood, dripping it on the middle of the fresh page. While waiting for the magic to work, Mum quick healed the cut in Violet's finger, took off the numbing charm — there was a tiny bit of tingling in Violet's fingertip, but it didn't hurt at all, Mum was good at that. It only took maybe fifteen seconds until the colours and lines and curves drawing themselves across the page stopped moving. Mum compared that page with the last one, flipping back and forth a couple times, before saying, "Yeah, that looks the same to me. You didn't make yourself any younger, just smaller."

She let out a puff of breath. "G-good. That potion felt weird."

"Yeah, I bet it did, being forcefully transfigured is always uncomfortable. I'll go put these away, meet you at the fireplace."

Violet finished tying her shoes, and grabbed her nice cloak — it seemed silly, but fancy people always wore a cloak when leaving the house, even if they were just going straight from one place to another through the floo. She buttoned the cloak closed, and Susan helped her with her hair a little (it got in there funny), and then they went back to the living room, waiting for Mum in front of the fire place. She might be glaring at it a little.

Violet hated the floo.

Since it would be bad if Violet fell over in the floo and got lost or something, Mum asked if she wanted to be carried through it again. Frowning at the fireplace, Violet thought about it — she was really bad at going through the floo, but being carried through it like a baby was embarrassing. And she was going to be meeting a bunch of new kids, so that was kind of important?

...But actually getting there was more important than not embarrassing herself, or ruining her dress or something, so yeah, Mum carrying her was probably a good idea, thanks.

After a few breaths of spinning and clunking and green, they were on the other side — Violet waited a couple seconds for her head to stop spinning before letting go of Mum's cloak, she set her down again. A quick charm to clean the soot out of Violet's pretty dress (Mum and Susan didn't get dirty at all...), and Violet had to fix her hair. She made floo-green swirls in it again, she didn't know why she kept doing that, she didn't even feel it happen...

The room they were standing in Violet knew was specifically for welcoming guests through the floo, she'd seen the ones at Ancient House and Susan's place. It was, like, salon-sized, but didn't have anywhere to sit — there was a single armchair to either side of the person-sized fireplace, for old people who needed a minute after going through, but that was it. It was made of wood, polished smooth and shiny with a bit of a red-gold gleam in the firelight, no fancy marble or whatever but the ceiling was carved with a rolling wavy pattern, florets near the top of the walls, lines and curls and blobs here and there made of what Violet was pretty sure was real gold, glittering all pretty.

On the wall straight across from the fireplace there was a banner hanging, a shield with all the flowery stuff around it that fancy people did, on the shield a hammer crossed with...a horn? like the kind you blow to make noise? between the head of the hammer and the top of the horn a...seven-pointed star. Violet assumed that was a thing for whichever family owned this place — she didn't recognise it, but she didn't know most of the noble families' stuff, so.

Once they were all straightened out again, they started walking, Mum's heels click click click-ing on the smooth wood floor. There was only one door, a woman waiting there, in a nice dress in the same style as Mum's — though the lady's had a lot of yellow and a deep, chocolatey brown. She was older, but not, like, super old, you could mostly just tell by the thin lines sketched around on her face, her hair still a deep not-quite-black brown. It was hard to guess how old mages were, because they aged funny, but Violet thought she was around Julie's age, which meant she was around Mum's age. She forgot sometimes how old Mum was, her schoolmates were, like, grandmums and stuff now...

The lady was watching them, her eyes sharp — suspicious, maybe? As they neared the door, she said, "Welcome, friends. I'm afraid I don't know any of you by sight — who am I speaking to?"

"I suppose I can't reasonably be offended you don't recognise me." Coming to a stop near the lady, Mum quick dipped in a little curtsey, which Violet knew was appropriate. "Cassiopeia Black. The girls are my daughter, Violet Black, and my niece, Lady Susan Rhonwen, House of Bones. Girls, this is our hostess, Lady Edna, Noble House of Smith — our time at Hogwarts overlapped, ages ago now."

While Mum was talking, Edna had gone all stiff, her eyes widening a little, staring at Mum. Violet guessed she wasn't very happy to see Mum, for some reason. Mum turned back to the lady, and she must have noticed, letting out a little, "Ah." Dipping her head a little again, she held both hands out wide at her sides, and said, "Anókí shómereth ghal hasshalóm." Violet didn't know what language that was, but it definitely wasn't English or Gaelic, and she didn't think it was Cambrian either.

Edna blinked, rearing back a little. She stared at Mum for a second longer, then said, "Well, at the least I can imagine what you meant to say."

Mum grinned. "Good — I just looked it up in a dictionary last night. I don't speak Hebrew any better now than I did that time you caught me 'eavesdropping' in Hufflepuff."

"You can hardly fault me my suspicions. You did have a way about you of lurking in the odd corner." The last of the stiffness going out, Edna held out both hands toward Mum, around waist-level, which Violet guessed was supposed to mean something.

"Still do, I'm told." Stepping closer, Mum took her hands, leaned in to do that funny cheek-kissing thing some grown-ups did — from her lessons with Lord Arcturus, Violet knew that in magical Britain that was only a thing with some parts of the Light. The Blacks were a Dark family, but Edna was the hostess, so doing things her way was polite. "Proved useful in the Aurors, but mostly I'm just nosey."

"Naturally," Edna drawled, sounding like she thought something was funny. Which was fair, because Mum was funny sometimes. Letting go of Mum's hands, she looked past Mum to Violet and Susan, gave them a nod. "Welcome, children."

Violet and Susan just said, "Thank you, Lady Edna," almost at the same time — Violet stuttered on the "lady". If they were doing the Light politeness rules, she was pretty sure that's all that children were supposed to do, when talking to adults? She hadn't practised much, and, she was sure there was more you were supposed to do in Dark politeness rules — like, there was a whole bowing thing (or a curtsy if you were wearing a skirt), and there was also stuff you were supposed to say about being honoured by the invitation and accepting hospitality and such (which was also in the Light politeness rules, but children weren't expected to do it) — but it didn't look like Susan was moving to do anything else, so that must be it. Hopefully? All the silly formal etiquette and stuff was so complicated...

Apparently Violet and Susan weren't getting it wrong, because Edna just gave them a thin smile before turning back to Mum. "I presume you still know your way around."

"It's been a while, but I'm sure I can figure it out. We're in the white dining hall, just off the ballroom to the right?"

"It was redone nearly thirty years ago — it's green now, garden theme."

"Let me guess, the old grand windows are now a door, opening up into the courtyard around the fountain just there? That sounds charming. Anyway, yes, we can find our way — wouldn't want to keep you from greet—" There was a roar of the floo, a woman and a boy came stepping out of the fireplace. "And there you are. Come on girls, let's get out of the way..."

The hallway was made out of the same wood as the floo room, near the ceiling everything glowing a warm yellow from natural sunlight. At least, it looked like natural sunlight, you could never tell with magic. Out here there were a couple teenagers taking people's cloaks and stuff, hanging them up in a big closet — Mum and Violet gave up theirs, but Susan didn't, explaining that she was a Seer and she needed it. The girl nodded, said she would inform Lady Edna, and waved them down the hall.

They walked for a little bit, the place quiet except for Mum's heels click click click-ing on the tile and their clothes rustling. Violet was a little nervous — meeting new kids didn't go very well a lot of the time, and they'd all be going to Hogwarts together for seven years and everything — she found herself picking at her skirt and forced herself to stop. They were passing doors, most of them were closed but some were open, she peeked in each one as they went by to distract herself. A hallway, a fancy-looking salon, that room had a piano in it, through these wide double doors was a big glittery ballroom, like from a period film or something...

Violet started to hear music — classical music, like violins and stuff — and voices, a mix of adults and children chatting, and not long after that they reached what must be the green dining hall. She could tell, because it was very green. The floors were a dark tile, the furniture — two dining tables at opposites sides of the room, lined with chairs, covered with a blue tablecloth edged in yellow and white, a cabinet filled with rows of bottles (alcohol?), another cabinet that must have more dishes and stuff — were all in a shiny light brown wood, but the walls were a deep, rich green, like, grass in the shade. And the ceiling was green too, but a lighter colour, like looking up at leaves overhead during the day — the colour was even lighter and darker in patches, like the sun was getting through better in some place than others, the tree cover thinner or thicker. Looking closely, the walls were textured too, with lines and curves, it was barely there, but it almost looked like leaves speckled all over the place, a pattern that Violet couldn't miss now that she noticed. She could see how it was garden-themed.

And Mum guessed right, there were a set of big glass doors leading right outside — there was a brick path leading to a paved area around a fountain, like the Malfoys had, meant for garden parties and stuff. The doors were closed now, though, the gardens looking a bit sad, some of the plants covered in buds but not filling out proper yet. Too early in the season, Violet guessed.

"So," Mum said, stopping near the door. "I'll have to bring Violet around to introduce her to everyone, but I can drop you off somewhere. See anyone you'd prefer to talk to?"

Because there were a bunch of people in here already, like, a couple dozen, probably. There were supposedly about twenty kids coming? Assuming each kid brought one parent, that meant a total of forty people, which was silly. They weren't late, but, from the number of people Violet saw in the room, they were probably somewhere in the middle. Too many people, in fancy clothes and talking and moving around, Violet couldn't...

Susan perked up a little with an "ooh", started pointing before catching herself. "There, by the doors, that's Olivie and Fay, with Daphne Greengrass and, um, those are the Zabinis, right?"

"Yep, that's Mira — fashion sense as flashy as always. Come on, let's go say hello."

People watched them as they went through the room, curious, a couple kids waved at Susan. She'd been to these pre-Hogwarts tea party things before, so she knew most of the kids already, or at least seen them before. But everyone was in the middle of conversations and stuff, breaking away or shouting across the room would be rude, so everyone left them alone long enough to get to the group of people Susan spotted. They were standing close to the doors leading out to the garden, three girls, a boy, and two mums and two dads. Olivie and Fay Violet knew from school — though it was a little weird seeing them all made up in fancy dresses and stuff, Violet didn't recognise them until Susan pointed them out — the other girl had bright blonde hair that nearly glowed in the sunlight, her dress green with sparkling beads speckled through the fabric. The boy was black (the only person in the room who wasn't white) with a soft, pretty face, in a suit with the trousers and jacket and everything — the trousers a deep blue and the jacket a bright red, because mages liked colour — which looked kind of funny on an eight-year-old boy, and was maybe kind of too muggle-ish style? Violet wasn't sure. The blonde girl must be Daphne Greengrass, who Violet had heard about but never met — Susan knew her, and most of her food came from the Greengrasses' land for Seer reasons — which meant the black boy must be one of "the Zabinis", but Violet didn't know who they were...

Olivie saw them coming, perked up with a grin. All but bouncing on her toes, she waited for them to come close enough she wouldn't need to shout, before she said, "Violet! Susan! Hi!" and almost jumped at Violet, arms wrapping around her.

Since some of her etiquette lessons, Violet learned that mages could be kind of weird about some things. Like, most people didn't do handshakes — you did see them sometimes, but they were very rare, just for certain government or guild stuff. (Lord Arcturus thought it was a muggle thing.) There was a thing like a handshake, where you grabbed each other's forearm, the bottom of the palms kind of pressing together? which was basically the same thing as a handshake, like, it was used at the same times. By which, Violet meant it was mostly just used before and after business meetings and stuff, and sometimes political meetings, especially if the person you were meeting was not a friend, kind of a see, I don't have a knife up my sleeve, so I can't be planning to stab you in the back thing. And also military people, and it was more common with Gaels, apparently.

Other things could be complicated, because they changed so much for all kinds of reasons. There were different levels of formality you had to keep track of, but also social rank — the Chief Warlock and the heads of Most Ancient Houses (like Susan) at the top, and then the Minister of Magic and the heads of normal Noble Houses next (like Lady Edna or Harry Potter), and then Ministry Directors, and then members of Most Ancient Houses (like Mum and Violet), and then members of normal Noble Houses (like Olivie and Fay), and then certain special offices in the Ministry (like the Chief Auror, but Rufus was also nobility) and some guild things, and then heads of Common Houses, and then people who had a Mastery (like a magic Ph.D.), and then members of Common Houses (like Síomha), and finally aliens (like the Starlighters) — which was super confusing, keeping track of who was at what level and what kind of politeness that called for, and who was allowed to do what, it was a big mess. What age people were also mattered, or if they were both men or both women or one of each, and for some things it was different if it was the man or the woman who was older. And most of this could be ignored or the rules could be bent if your families were close allies, or if the two people were friends...and then there were a few different groups in the country, and they did a lot of it different, depending, it was super super confusing. Lord Arcturus was teaching her — just how the Dark and the Light did things (the Blacks were Dark), mostly ignoring the Gaels, who were kind of Dark but kind of neither — but it was a lot of stuff to remember, Violet still had a lot to learn. It was okay if she didn't get it right all the time, the rules were looser for children and people weren't going to get super offended if a little kid did a thing wrong, but it still made her kind of nervous.

Violet knew from her lessons that hugging was only okay at formal events between family and very close allies for the Dark, or family and same-sex friends for the Light. So, this didn't look super weird to other people, they would just assume Violet and Olivie were friends, but also Olivie was really huggy sometimes? Violet started noticing that after a few Hogwarts club meetings. Not that that was a bad thing, Violet liked hugs, it was just a surprise at first. And kind of a surprise now, Olivie jumped so quick Violet almost didn't see her coming, her arm got pinned...

It was kind of funny how their skirts scrunched together, noisy.

They had to go through the introductions one-by-one, which was a bit slow, but they were being proper today, so. Olivie introduced Violet and Susan and Mum to her mum — they never met before, Olivie took the floo to school — they said a couple things back and forth, and then it was Fay's turn. Violet got a hug again — Fay was much less talkative and bouncy than Olivie, but she was nice too. (She wasn't sure when she got so many hugging friends, but that wasn't a bad thing, hugs were nice.) Violet thought the Greengrasses were coming next, she was told all the names of the Noble Houses by now, she didn't always remember them all but she knew the Zabinis weren't in them. She was already turning that way — the beads in Daphne's dress were so sparkly, and her hair glowed in the sunlight...

So she was taken by surprise when the woman with the black boy stepped up to them first. Her dress was very red, dark but with glimmers of something glittery in it, sparkling in the sun. Violet thought she was probably from down south somewhere, her black hair long and curly, her skin a pale bronze-ish colour, eyes brown. In a low, smooth voice, she said, "Àmeđa Cassia, son aliegra sta drio riunirti a ti."

"Ach, girl..." The woman came up to Cassie, they took each other's hands, did the cheek-kissing thing. "I speak a little toscano e sicilianu, but I hardly know enough veneta to order a bottle of wine. But it is good to see you again too — charming as always, of course. I would ask after your husband, but for the life of me I can't recall whether you're between men at the moment or not."

The woman's smile faded a little, just for a second before brightening again. "I don't believe you've met Jack. Jack Daly."

"The name's not familiar to me, no."

"I don't expect it would be — he's a muggle, you see. He's a founder of some company that is involved somehow with computers, I confess I don't understand the half of it. Though it's all quite fascinating, of course."

"Of course." Mum was playing casual, all smiling and nodding, but Violet was pretty sure she was surprised. It was subtle, just a slight quirk on her voice. Violet guessed most people here hardly even met muggles at all...

"And I don't believe you've met my son yet." Still holding one of Mum's hands, the woman turned halfway to the black boy waiting quietly just next to her. "Mé ànxelo, this is Cassiopeia Black — yes, the one from the stories. Àmeđa Cassia, my son Blaise."

"It's nice to finally meet you, Àmeđa Cassia," the boy said, smiling up at Mum. "Mother has mentioned you often."

"Ach, trying to continue this àmeđa business of yours into a second generation then, are you? You're old enough to know better than to encourage your mother like that, Blaise."

He just kept smiling. "I don't know what you mean. Encourage her to do what, Àmeđa?"

"That," Mum said, pointing at Blaise (which Violet knew was very rude), "that right there. Oh well, I suppose it was a lost cause by your mother's fifteenth birthday, incorrigible little thing. Anyway, there are many people I have to get around to before we sit down, so I'm not going to argue about it. Here, Violet, darling," Mum said, reaching behind her with one hand. Violet stepped closer, Mum's hand settling lightly on her shoulder. "Ah, I don't imagine she did, but did Bella ever mention my brother Marius?"

The woman (Mira?) twitched a little, surprised. "Ah, no, I don't believe she did, but I have encountered a rumour. Pardon me, but I believe he was a squib?"

"Yes, he was. Or so I learned after the fact — my parents sent him off while I was at school, I didn't hear about it until I returned home. But it seems the magic resurfaced after a couple generations: Violet here is his great-granddaughter, and was even fortunate enough to inherit the family talent as well. I came across her about a year and a half ago, I've adopted her. Violet, this is Mirabella Zabini — she and your Aunt Bellatrix were very close friends, once." Her Aunt Bellatrix? The one who was in gaol for following that Dark Lord person? "I've heard she's also the Director of Education down at the Ministry these days."

"Oohhh..." A couple people glanced at her, Violet shrugged. "Sorry, I thought the G-G-G-Greengrasses were first, I d-didn't know you were in the Ministry. Um. Neh– Nice to meet you, Lllady Zabini." It took Violet a second, stalling on the lie, but it was perfectly nice to meet her — she and Mum seemed to know each other, and she sounded nice, and her dress was so pretty (the fabric glittered when she moved, Violet loved it) — so she got through it. And, the "Lady" was right, right? She was pretty sure Department Directors were called "Lady" (or "Lord") even when they weren't nobility, just to be polite...but she couldn't remember if it went with the first or last name...

"And it's a pleasure to meet you as well, Violet." Mirabella crouched down a little in front of Violet, holding her hands out — it took a second for Violet to figure out what she was supposed to do, set her hands on Mirabella's. Her hands were warm and smooth and soft, from this close Violet could tell she smelled like cinnamon and juniper. "And to see you with Cass—" She cut herself off, glanced up at Mum. "You've adopted her, properly?" Mum nodded, Mirabella turned back to Violet. "Between you and me, I've always thought your mother had a way with children — it only seems appropriate that a lost child of the Family should find her way to her. Welcome home, sweetheart, and good luck."

That was all kind of silly, Violet wasn't sure why this Mirabella lady was being so serious about this — maybe something to do with being really close friends with Bellatrix? So she thought the House of Black was kind of her business, like. Or maybe she and Mum used to be close, Violet should ask later. Before she could decide what she was supposed to say, Mirabella leaned closer, pressed a light kiss on Violet's cheek — like, actually with her lips, not like the cheek-kissing thing some people did saying hello, which didn't have any real kissing in it — as Mirabella let go of Violet's hands and stood up again, Violet blinked up at her, surprised and very confused.

(Mirabella did smell nice, though, cinnamon and juniper, it was kind of hanging around Violet now.)

She was so confused that she kind of bumbled her way through saying hi to Blaise — he did seem nice, barely blinked at Violet stammering really badly on his name, oops. When they were done talking to the Zabinis, before saying hi to the Greengrasses, she felt Mum's hand gently touch her back, leaning close over her. She hissed, "Italian," and that was it, standing straight again.

...Probably saying Mirabella acted a little weird because she was Italian, and they had their own etiquette rules that were different from the British ones. Okay, then.

Then it was the Greengrasses' turn. The dad was called Víðir Hallbjörnsson — Mum later explained that he was from Norway, he married into the Greengrasses, which explained the little bit of a drawling bouncy accent he had — tall and thin and very blond, his hair super long and held in a plait decorated with ribbons and beads and stuff. That seemed kind of girly to Violet, but she knew by now that mages had different standards for that sort of thing, it must be fine for them.

Víðir introduced Daphne, taller than Violet and also with super long blonde hair, and her eyes were very very blue. This close Violet could see there were more beads worked into Daphne's dress than she thought, strings of white and green and yellow and red, glittering in the light, so pretty. Smiling all warm and happy at her, when Víðir was done with the names, she said, "It is good to meet you, at last — Susan speaks of you often." She had a bit of an accent, speaking slowly and carefully, kind of reminding Violet of Fay? Her first language must be Cambrian too. As she spoke, Daphne stepped closer, her hands coming up, Violet thought she was trying to take Violet's hands, but then she stepped even closer and—

Oh! Violet was getting another hug. Um, okay, then. That was breaking the rules — the hugging was just supposed to be for friends, and they never even met before — but she didn't mind, hugs were nice.

"And I love your dress," Daphne said, pulling away again. "The colours of the skirt are nice, how they are layers."

"Yeah! L-Lord Ah-Ah-Ack-Eh—" Violet bit her lip. "I thought he wasn't g-g-going to let me have it — mleh, stammer, I'm sorry. He said it was eccentric, but I like the b-bouncy, and the c-c-colours, they're all like a r-r-rrr-rr..."

Daphne grinned. "Rainbow, yes, like this." Her hand came up, Violet twitched, leaned away — which was silly, Daphne wasn't going to do anything bad, but the stammering made her all jumpy, embarrassed. She hooked a bit of Violet's hair, pulling it forward...showing that some bits down toward the ends had changed colour, most of it still blonde but with some red and green and purple swirls in it, rainbow colours...

"Oh. Oops. D-didn't mean to do that..."

"It's pretty! You should keep it."

Violet frowned down at her funny-looking blonde-rainbow hair for a second, before glancing up at Mum. Smiling at her, Mum ran her hand through Violet's hair, pulling the bit Daphne had messed with back with the rest. "It's hardly a natural hair colour, but I think it's very cute. A little eccentric, perhaps," the word said with a little wink, because Mum was silly sometimes, "but there's nothing wrong with a little extra colour, is there?" Well, no, Violet thought people used way too little colour a lot of the time, but...

Yeah, okay, she'd keep the hair. Or not change it back on purpose, anyway — she didn't mean to do it in the first place, who knows how long it'll stay. "Oh! And I lllike your d-dress too! The b-b-b-beads sparkle! All over, it's so p-peh-pretty. I'm stammering so much t-t-today, I'm sorry, aaahhh," Violet groaned, bouncing on her toes a little.

Daphne giggled, for a second Violet thought she was laughing at her, but then she said, "Your skirt makes crinkly noises when you do that, that's fun."

"I know! I love it, fwish fwish fwish fwish..."

"The beads in mine tinkle a little, see?" Daphne bounced up on her toes, and oh, they did make tinkling noises! Like a bunch of tiny little bells, thinner and clearer than the harsh rattle when Violet ran her hand through a box of beads, more delicate.

"Oh that's so p-pretty! I love it!" Violet could tell she was bouncing, but she wasn't trying to — if it weren't for her dress rustling at her, she might not even notice. Just, it was so hard to sit still sometimes, especially when she was excited, and, Daphne was super nice about Violet's really bad stammering, and her dress was super pretty, and at least meeting the first couple new kids had gone super well, she knew Daphne would be nice, she was friends with Susan already, and maybe today wouldn't be so bad, something warm and bubbling so tight and big in her chest it was impossible to sit still, and— "Wearing n-n-nnnice dresses is so fun!"

"I know!" Violet could hear the adults were talking, she could see Víðir smiling at them between talking to Mum, but Daphne was ignoring them. She slipped a little closer to Violet, grinning, taking both of her hands, and she was bouncing on her toes too, her dress jingling, the beads going tink-tink-tink-tink-tink... "Some of the other kids aren't very nice, but the clothes are so pretty!"

"And and and there's t-tiny cakes!"

Daphne giggled. "I can't have cake, there's egg in that."

Oh, was she allergic? "I'm sorry, t-t-tiny cakes are so g-good."

"That's okay, there are always honey wafers. And the tea, and berries, and everyone's so pretty, and yaaayyy..."

"Yaaayyy..."

"Yaaayyy," another voice said, Blaise appearing...bobbing up and down with them, one hand coming to Violet's arm near her elbow, the other hand on Daphne's. "What are we doing? Is this a game? Or did you get into the tea when I wasn't looking?"

"Oh be nice, Blaise..."

(Looking back on it, Violet would wonder if Blaise was making fun of them, but, even though Daphne had been copying her acting all weird, she was very sure Daphne wasn't. Daphne was a bit weird herself — Violet didn't really think so, but she later learned that most of the other noble kids did — and she was just super super nice.)

(So Violet made at least one new friend at this silly tea party thing, almost right away, she guessed that was something.)

Before they got to the actual tea part of the tea party, Mum pulled Violet around the room to introduce her to everybody. None of them went as well as meeting Daphne — Violet was really happy about that even minutes later, feeling all bouncy and her face still a little warm — but she thought they mostly went okay? While they were talking to Daphne and her dad, Ernest and his mum joined their group — Violet and Ernest knew each other already, obviously, but their mums didn't, and it was still polite to say hello. (Mum and Ernest's dad met before, Lord Arcturus's wife was a MacMillan, but she hadn't seen him since he was a little kid.) There were two other clumps of people in the room (their families were political allies, Violet was told later), they went over to say hello to the smaller group first.

Violet spotted Draco's sparkly white hair from halfway across the room; Aunt Narcissa saw them coming, smiling and waving them over. (Not a big obvious wave, just a little flick of her fingers, more polite.) When they got close enough, Aunt Narcissa took both of Mum's hands and did the cheek-kissing and everything, babbling about how nice it was to see her again, blah blah. Then Narcissa said hello to Violet, crouching down a little to take both of her hands — no cheek-kissing, which was fine, because Violet still thought that was a little weird — blah blah, and she was looking so precious today, and the colours in her hair were nice, thanks, Violet thought so too! And, Aunt Narcissa's dress was mostly normal-looking, people didn't use enough colours sometimes, but she plaited thin little silver wires into her hair, it glittered, it was so pretty!

Violet and Draco also said hello, but that went quicker, just a couple nods and waves, Draco just saying Hello, Cousin. They only met like a couple times so far, but Violet was trying to polite because she didn't think she liked Draco much — he was so mean to Tracey at that holiday party like a whole year ago now...

Then they went through saying hello to all the people, Violet only half paid attention to the adults, but she tried really hard to remember all the names and stuff of the kids. They were going to be classmates at Hogwarts for seven whole years, so. (And their faces wouldn't change like Violet's did, so they were worth remembering.) First after Draco and Aunt Narcissa were Theo Nott and his mum (Violet forgot her name), and then Pansy Parkinson and her mum (Hilda). Violet had actually met them before, at that party at the Malfoys', but they didn't talk much and she didn't really remember — Theo seemed really shy, and Pansy made a face every time Violet stammered. She kept it to herself, but Violet was pretty sure Pansy was thinking mean thoughts.

Next was Tracey and...not her mum, an aunt? She and Mum were kind of friendly — Mum's sex friend Julie was born a Davis (Monroe now), she knew some of the people in the family — which made Violet notice that she and Theo and Pansy's mums had been pretty stiff and cold with each other, it went over her head at the time. (This group were the Death Eater families, Mum would tell her later, she didn't like the Notts and Parkinsons and they didn't like her.) Violet actually gave Tracey a hug saying hello, just because she looked like she could use one. She was being all shy and quiet, her head down and shrunk in, and, hugs were nice, and she knew a lot of these other kids were mean to her — it was breaking the politeness rules, but Violet felt like it anyway. Last was Millicent Bulstrode and her mum, Violet was pretty sure she met at that holiday party, but she didn't remember...

Wait, wasn't Mum's mum a Bulstrode? Yeah, she thought so! That meant Violet and Millicent were cousins somehow! (Like, actually cousins, because, Violet's real grandmother was Mum's baby sister Dorea, so Mum's mum was Violet's great-grandmother.) Violet never knew she had so many cousins before, and at least most of them were nicer than Dudley so far. Millicent was pretty quiet, about as shy as Theo, a little pudgy (probably the fattest kid in the room, in fact), her hair all long and curly and red-brown, like the burnt auburn sort of colour you might see in a fox or something, it was pretty! Millicent didn't seem to know what to say to that, blinked at Violet for a couple seconds before stammering out that she liked the rainbow bits in Violet's hair.

But Violet honestly barely heard that because Millicent stammered too! Talking was hard, right? That time she got a smile, yeah, talking was hard...

(Violet also noticed that Millicent's R-sounds didn't come out quite right, but lots of kids had trouble with Rs, that was actually normal. And it didn't sound like Millicent's stammering problem was as bad as Violet's, but still. Violet kind of hoped they could sit together later, just because.)

(She later remembered that she had actually met Millie before, she was at the Malfoys' holiday party last year. Forgot, oops.)

Millicent was last in this group, Violet and Mum moved on to the last one, which was the biggest of the three, about half of the whole room. She saw Morag and Tony from school were in this group, but the first people they talked to were Zacharias Smith and his mum — they were in the Smiths' house, so Zach was their host, kind of, so he went first. Zach was at the Malfoy's party, Violet mostly remembered because he was mean about her stammer. He was a little more nice today, just making a face and not saying anything, which she guessed was better. Then they talked to Tony and Morag — Violet got another hug from Morag, so they were hugging friends now, and she almost hugged Tony too before remembering that the Light thought girls hugging boys was improper — and then they talked to Neville Longbottom and his grandmother Lady Augusta.

Lady Augusta was the only head of a Most Ancient House in the room (other than Susan), so they should have been introduced first, for politeness reasons, but it was obvious pretty fast why they weren't: Lady Augusta did not like Mum. Mum later explained that Bellatrix hurt Neville's parents, Lady Augusta's son and daughter-in-law, really badly at the end of the war, and Lady Augusta blamed the Lestranges and the Blacks for it, and basically hated anyone even a little bit connected to Bellatrix now. That seemed...kind of silly. Like, Mum didn't have anything to do with that — Mum and Bellatrix were on opposite sides of the war — and Violet was just a baby at the time, and Bellatrix hadn't even been a Black for ages by then, married into the Lestranges. But, whatever, Violet knew that people could do things that didn't really make a lot of sense when they were hurt, it took time to heal, so she didn't take it personal.

Neville was a lot like Millie, actually, a bit pudgy and really shy, and he even had a stammer too! Still not as bad as Violet's, but she noticed it. Lady Augusta seemed a little annoyed by Violet saying that they should be friends, but some kids could be very mean about things like not talking right, so it just made sense to Violet that she and Millie and Neville should stick together. Or was this one of those things that only made sense to her?

After that were Terry Boot — Violet completely forgot until Terry's mum mentioned it that they met before, at the Malfoys' party that one time, oops again — and Michael Corner, who both seemed nice enough. And then there were Padma and Parvati Patil and their mum, they were Indian. (Now that the whole group was here, the three Patils and Blaise were the only people in the room who weren't white.) Padma and Parvati were identical twins, and their dresses (and their mum's) were super pretty, a bunch of different colours in a repeating mosaic-looking pattern, the pattern on Parvati's kind of the opposite of Padma's, the colours switched around, Violet loved it!

There was something kind of funny about the Patil twins though. Violet couldn't quite put her finger on it at the time, they just seemed...off. Mum would later explain that they were bonded twins, which was confusing magic stuff. It was a thing that could happen to magical twins (and even muggles too sometimes?) where their minds being put together right next to each other inside their mum could kind of get locked together in a funny way — they were always reading each others minds, and were kind of the same person? Like, they could see each others thoughts and feel each others feelings, so real it wasn't like they were different, so, a lot of bonded twins normally thought of themselves as one person who just had two bodies. It didn't last forever, things happening to one body that didn't happen to the other one could sometimes shake them loose and they became separate people, normally somewhere between the age of five and thirteen or so. So, the Patil twins were kind of the same person with two bodies now, but they probably wouldn't be for very long, so if Padma and Parvati started acting different Mum said Violet shouldn't make a big deal about it and just treat them however they wanted to be treated.

All that was weird, but Violet was kind of a girl and a boy and could make herself look like whatever she wanted just by thinking about it hard enough, so she didn't get to judge other people for being a little weird.

Next was Lavender Brown and her mum, and...Violet was pretty sure Lavender was making fun of her. It was hard to tell, she wasn't coming right out and saying it, and she was even saying Violet's dress was pretty and everything. So, she seemed nice, but something about the way she was talking to Violet was making her uncomfortable, she couldn't say why. (Mum was frowning basically the whole time, her voice a little sharp, so Violet didn't think she was imagining it.) Stephen Cornfoot seemed mostly nice, but his mum was really stiff, said the bare minimum to Mum and Violet (and barely even that, really), her voice low and cold. Violet assumed it was politics — a lot of these adults didn't seem very happy to be see Mum, honestly — so she decided to just not worry about it.

And that was it, they said hello to everyone — and everyone was actually here now, so they didn't have to catch up with anyone they missed. They were just drifting back to the first group — Violet had the most friends there, and she later learned they were the Blacks' political allies too (which was convenient) — when the music cut off. Violet wasn't looking for it before, but there was a turntable against the wall, that's where the music was coming from, Lady Edna standing there waiting for their attention. It was time for tea, then.

As kids and their parents split up, going to their own tables, Mum gently ran her fingers through Violet's hair, leaning a little closer over her. "If you need to leave, come get me, and I'll make our excuses. Okay?"

Violet nodded. "Okay." She didn't think it'd be a big problem, there were enough kids here who were nice, but.

"Good luck, darling." Mum dropped a quick kiss on the top of her head before straightening and walking off, leaving Violet behind. She watched Mum go for a second before turning the other way, glancing over the kids' table. Zach was standing at one end — only the end across from the door to the gardens had a chair, Violet thought that was his spot, doing the host thing — toward the garden side of the table, across from him, Susan was already sitting down, With Olivie and Daphne and Fay...she didn't see Ernie, where— Oh, he was sitting with most of the boys, over closer to Zach. Violet thought it was a little silly for the girls and the boys to split up, but whatever. Maybe she just felt that way because she could be both, and if she was being honest she still didn't get what the difference was...girls got prettier clothes, she guessed...

Violet skipped over to Susan's end of the table — Susan saved a seat right next to her, that must be for Violet. "Hi, I'm back."

"Finally got done saying hello to everyone, I take it."

"Yeah, it t-teh-t-took forever. Mleh." Violet had her chair pulled out, was turning to sit down, looking across the table— "Oh! M-M— Ugh. Millie! Tracey! Over here!" Violet noticed she was waving at them, and made herself stop — that was rude, forgot. "Um, hey, Fay, Blaise, c-c-can you make r-room for them, please..."

Fay just shrugged, muttered to Tony about moving some chairs around, Olivie was glancing between Violet and Tracey, confused. Millie and Tracey both looked surprised Violet was getting their attention — they were both standing around with Draco's friends, though neither of them looked very happy to be there — Violet was wondering if maybe there was a reason they wouldn't want to sit over here (politics), Daphne was on her feet, walking over there. She hooked Tracey by the elbow, said something to the group there Violet didn't catch from here, started pulling her over to their side of the table. Fay and Tony and Blaise were working at moving around, people still dancing figuring out where they were sitting, Daphne pushing them down a little when she got back so Tracey could sit on the end. "Tracey can sit with me," Daphne said, a firm note on her voice Violet couldn't figure out. Looking at Violet, "Our mothers were classmates at Hogwarts, you know, we've been friends forever."

...Violet was pretty sure Daphne was trying to make some kind of point, but she had no idea what. It didn't seem like Daphne was annoyed with her or anything, so, it was probably fine.

It took a lot of shuffling around, but everyone found a seat eventually. Millie ended up way on the end, Tracey straight across from her, Violet next to Millie, Daphne straight across from her, and then Susan on Violet's other side, Blaise across from her. Olivie was on Susan's other side — they knew already from school that accidental touches from Olivie didn't bother Susan as badly as most people, happy and cheerful enough of a person there was nothing bad following her (Susan knew she would die quietly, in her sleep, very old) — Fay across from her, so there were actually a couple people between Violet and most of the people here that she knew already. But that was fine, she was still next to Susan, and Daphne was nice! And Tracey and Millie were all shy and quiet, seemed like they could use some friends...

Some people further down the table were still figuring out where they wanted to sit when people — young teenagers, mostly — started sweeping into the room with tea trays and stuff. Violet frowned, watching them, a little confused. "Hey, um." She leaned a little closer to Susan, whispered in Gaelic. "I'm sorry, but, I thought other families have house elves too?"

"Elves aren't supposed to be seen — Nola is the only elf from another family I've ever seen before. Having the elves serve us tea would be an insult. It's stupid, but those are the rules."

...Violet did not like that. It was reminding her of the cupboard, how Harry was supposed to stay quiet, out of the way. Vernon had guests over before, from work, Harry was either sent to Mrs Figg's, or put up in Dudley's spare bedroom, or even kept in the cupboard, only a short way from the dining room where they were having dinner — hungry, they could smell dinner, they'd helped make it but barely got any, keeping completely silent, pretending they didn't exist. (You had to exist to be hungry.) It was giving Violet a very bad feeling. But she didn't make the rules, and this wasn't her house, she guessed it wasn't her business, so.

(She couldn't help wondering if thoughts like that were why nobody had done anything about her until Mum came along. That thought made her feel even worse.)

She tried not to think about it — she was trying to make friends and everything, and it wasn't like there was anything she could do about the elves here anyway. (She wasn't Mum, Violet couldn't just walk in places and save people like that, no matter how very cool that would be.) Violet thought the kids bringing stuff out were school-age — academy, that is — but they must go to some school other than Hogwarts if they were here now, which meant they couldn't be Zach's cousins or something. Maybe Lady Edna hired them? like how some of the kids back in Little Whinging would do little jobs for neighbours for some pocket money, you know. They clothes they were wearing were all kinda plain, trousers and shirts that weren't all super colourful or glittery and without any fancy bits, so, yeah, they were probably people who weren't from stupid rich families who Lady Edna was paying to help out.

Seemed a little silly to Violet, since the Smiths probably had house-elves like all the other stupid rich people, but whatever.

In her etiquette lessons with Lord Arcturus, she knew there were all kinds of rules about fancy tea parties and stuff, but mostly that was for smaller groups? Like, it didn't make sense for all the polite stuff around the pouring of the tea when the host couldn't go around and do it all with everyone one by one. Mum didn't say so, but Violet thought they were on fancy dinner rules, which were different — there were all kinds of things, about how you sat and how you reached for things and what utensils were used for what and what things were okay to talk about, lots and lots of rules. Most of that overlapped with fancy tea party rules, which were kind of the same thing? at least in the Light, the Dark rules were a little different, but this was a Light house so she thought they were using Light rules.

The Dark kind of didn't do tea at all, it turned out. They did drink tea, sometimes — a lot of them drank coffee instead, like Mum — but a lot of the fancy, posh stuff around tea, the pretty parties with the little sandwiches and everything that Violet kind of thought of as old-fashioned, was actually really new? Like, a hundred fifty years old, maybe. It leaked into the magical world around the same time, but didn't become super popular in the Light until around the Second World War, Lord Arcturus said. (There were reasons for that, but they were politics, over Violet's head.) But even then, it was really only super popular in the Light — the Dark didn't do it as much. The Dark did have an afternoon snack thing, since the noon and evening meals could be really far apart, but it was more casual, and often outdoors.

And also it was normal to have coffee instead. Violet didn't really think about this, because tea was everywhere in non-magical England, but it only became a big thing here not that long ago. Tea was from all the way in China, and slowly crept its way over here over hundreds and hundreds of years. Coffee, it turned out, was just from down in the Arabian mountains, much closer...though it hasn't been around for that much longer than tea, just by a couple hundred years. But coffee was old enough that it was in Britain before magic was made a secret, tea didn't come until later. Lord Arcturus said. He thought fancy tea parties were a new, and muggleish thing, which Violet thought was kind of silly, but it wasn't her business, really.

Anyway, the teenagers set out plates of pastries and tiny cakes and stuff. Not, like, crumpets and scones or cucumber sandwiches, stuff that Violet thought of as afternoon tea things — those were too new and muggleish for the Light too, apparently? Instead what they got looked very French to Violet. There were tiny cakes, kind of like the ones they had at that coffeeshop the day Violet first met Mum — Mum called them a French name, she forgot what — and layered biscuit cream things kind of like that (sometimes with meringue), and there were crêpes, tiny ones, like maybe the width of Violet's hand (so you could have more than one without getting super full), mostly filled with berries or hazelnut-honey butter or this mix of quark cheese and mushrooms (which sounded really weird but actually wasn't bad). There were even croissants, so you knew it was French.

(Apparently tea parties got popular in magical Britain around the Second World War because a bunch of posh French families came here to get away from the war, so tea seeming kind of French made a lot of sense when Violet thought about it.)

The tea service was a little weird, because there was a big pot set down for, like, every four people or so, but then there was a smaller pot in front of each of them. The tea bags were still in the big pot, so it would get stronger the longer it sat there — they were supposed to fill their smaller pot when they thought it was where they wanted it, and fill their cup from their own pot. (In the Dark rules, they did the same thing with coffee at dinner parties.) Except, since there was magic involved, they didn't have to pour from the big pot, just touch the spout of their little pot to the spout of the big pot and it'd fill up on its own, because magic was cool like that.

Watching everything be set out, Violet was a little confused by the fuss going on close by. There were special things for Susan, of course, for Seer reasons, but it looked like there were also special things for Olivie and Daphne. They were mostly the same special things, but the teenagers doing the serving didn't expect all their special people to be sitting close enough to reach. Listening to the talk, the plan was to pour for them from the pot with their stuff one by one, but since they were so close to each other instead they put the big pot down in the middle of the table, they could pour for themselves whenever the strength was to their liking. The food was different too — Daphne did say she couldn't have tiny cakes because they had eggs, and so did crêpes, and Violet thought croissants probably did too? — but instead of splitting it up they could just put it all together on a platter between Susan and Blaise, where Olivie and Daphne could reach it too.

That was kind of silly, Violet thought — if one group of kids had to eat something different from anyone else, they maybe should have had them all sit together just to make it easier. Susan and Olivie and Daphne did it by themselves anyway, but that was an accident...

The special food was mostly berries and pieces of fruit, and some nuts, and flatbread, and bean and mushroom gravy stuff, and there was some kind of layer...pastry...thing. It looked kind of sad, honestly — Violet would much rather have tiny cakes.

Once the teenagers had everything down, there was a bit of chatter and fussing about as people started taking stuff, Violet and Tracey and Millie taking turns to quick touch their little pot to the big one, to check what the tea was like. There was a hint of something flowery on it, it must be one of those tea blends that had something extra, but it was still super weak, Violet was gonna wait a couple minutes. "What's in those t-t-tiny cakes, you think?" Violet asked Millie — remembering at the last second not to point at the platter of things at their end of the table.

"Um. These ones are tarts. Spring berries, mm-most of them, these are a– a– a custard." Millie made a face, frustrated with her own stammering, Violet knew that feeling. "Mmille-feuille, this is tarte royale, um, almond custard. These are mah-mm-macarons." Millie kind of swallowed the R, half a W and half like the sound spelled dh or gh in Gaelic. Her face going pink, she shrunk in her seat a little, embarrassed.

"Hey, now, it's okay," Violet said, leaning over to kind of nudge Millie with her shoulder. "Talking is hard, and it's j-j-j– only us over here. And Tracey and D-Daphne, but they're nice. Um, these things are j-j-jah-j— Ugh, I hate that letter."

"Jams, yeah. Redcurrant—" Came out more like wedcooghant, but Violet knew what she meant. "—um, cherry, strawberry—" She just swallowed the Rs on those ones, but it was so smooth you almost didn't even notice she skipped a sound. "—this one's mar-marmalade..."

After going through the things, with a little help from Blaise when Millie couldn't explain what macarons were — they were basically meringues, and meringue was good! — Violet took one of the berry tarts, one of the tiny croissants (they were so little! very cute) and a couple macarons. She was a little curious about the tarte royale or whatever, but Tracey grabbed one right away, Violet though it might be her favourite, so she would leave those for her. One of the silly things about tea parties on the magic side was that, when you took things for yourself off of the serving platter, you just put them right on the tablecloth — which she guessed meant the tablecloth was actually used for something, which kind of made sense? Unless they were a thing that might leak, like the crêpes, they had a tiny plate for those. And another tiny plate to put jam or butter on, because there were serving knives and spoons you were supposed to use to move the stuff from their dishes to your tiny plate, and then you used your knife to spread the stuff on whatever, because fancy people were super fussy. Made sense when you think about it, so you didn't get bread crumbs all in the butter or jam or honey or whatever, but.

She checked the tea again, but it could be a little stronger, she'd keep waiting. "D-D-D—" Not happening, she forced herself to stop, take a breath. "Daphne?"

"Ha? Yes, Liz?"

"Are you a Seer too? I mean, Susan needs to have that stuff for Seer reasons."

"No no, it is..." Daphne frowned for a second, and then turned to lean in closer to Tracey. She said something, Violet could kind of hear it, but it was in...Cambrian? She thought that was Cambrian.

"Religious," Tracey muttered.

Daphne made a face, her nose scrunching a little — Violet thought she wasn't quite happy with using that word for it. But she must not be able to think of a better one, because she shrugged, and said, "It is a religious thing then, I guess."

"What k-k-k-kind of r-religion?" Violet had never heard of a religion whose people couldn't even eat eggs before... "Um, is that r-r-wr-rrude to ask? Bleh."

"The Greengrasses are Mistwalkers, Violet," Susan said, sounding just a little out of breath. She did the thing where she had to take her grounding potion and then eat a bunch so she didn't get sick — she waited until there wasn't food in her mouth anymore, but she didn't quite catch her breath back yet. "Proper Mistwalkers, I mean. The Boneses don't really follow any of that stuff anymore. The people at the Sanctuary still do, but."

Violet knew that the Mistwalkers had one of those religions where people had a bunch of littler gods, like the Gaels, but they were different ones? She didn't know much about it, like Susan said, her family didn't do that stuff anymore. "Um, okay."

Daphne must be able to tell Violet still didn't get it. "We don't eat meat, at all, ever. It is like..." She paused again, turned to whisper something to Tracey in Cambrian again. "Cannibalism! Yes, this is it. For us, we see that animals are no different, they have souls just as we do. So, eating meat," holding up one hand, her pointer finger up toward the ceiling, "and cannibalism," now holding up her right pointer finger, "these are..." She brought her hands together, her pointer fingers curling around each other, like the links on a chain. "...no difference."

...That was a little weird, but, Susan could feel animals' feelings and deaths and everything the same as people, so she could kind of see why magic people might think that? Wait, did animals have souls, actually? Violet knew souls were a real thing now, a magic thing, so, that was a good question, she should ask Mum later. "So, eggs are, like, like, ih-ih-eating babies?"

Her lips curling, Daphne shrugged. "A little bit, kind of, yes. This is why we don't eat eggs."

"Oh. Okay." Violet never heard of any of this before, but she got how, if you believed the animals have souls just like us part, all the rest of it made sense. She would try to remember that — mages had all kinds of weird complicated religious stuff, she wasn't sure she would. But Daphne was nice! and if they were going to be friends, Violet had to know what she could eat, in case she came over. "Um, what about— Olivie?" Violet leaned forward around Susan a little, so she could see Olivie. "Are you a M-M-Mistwalker too?"

Olivie seemed a little confused, frowning — Violet thought she wasn't listening to what they were talking about over here. "No? Why?" Daphne said something in some other language, probably Cambrian, Olivie's eyes going wide. "Oh! No, we're not Mistwalkers. We are kind of, like, Tugwood and the Mistwalkers are..."

"Cousins," Daphne said.

"Yes, like cousins! There are things we both have, we're related, but we're not the same. We also have rules about food — different ones, but if Daphne can eat something I can too."

"Ours are more strict — there are things Olivie can eat that I can't, but Olivie can eat everything I can. You see?"

"Yeah, Violet, a lot of people think the Mistwalkers are kind of weird and super religious. If some of the other kids look like they don't like to talk to Daphne, or me sometimes, that's why."

It only took a couple questions from Violet and also Blaise about Mistwalker stuff — Blaise knew a little bit about them, but it was mostly new to him too (he hadn't gone to very many more future Hogwarts student parties than Violet had) — before people started talking about where they lived, and their families, that kind of thing. Daphne's place seemed really cool! and Olivie's! Violet heard a little bit about Olivie's family before, at Hogwarts club meetings, but. The Greenwood had, like, a whole big town, and lots and lots of lots of farms, growing all kinds of stuff, the people living there taking care of them together. Even though the number of people they had there was more town-like they acted more like one big family, you know, everyone being super friendly and sharing stuff and everything, which sounded nice? Like there might not be much privacy ever, she guessed, but it sounded super pretty, with plants everywhere — not just in the farms proper, but they also had gardens all over the town, and vines climbing on the walls, and even growing indoors — and everyone's clothes being super colourful and with beads everywhere, and even beads in piercings and stuff. Violet didn't know if she'd want to live there, necessarily, but it sounded really cool!

Violet would like to visit! that sounded like fun! She'd talk to Mum about it, they could figure that out later...

It sounded like the way the Tugwoods lived was really close to the Greenwood — the style was different, the way they built things and their clothes and stuff, and the rules they had for people there weren't quite the same, but close. Listening to Olivie talk about it, her home sounded less pretty than the Greenwood, but also like it was a little easier to get privacy if you wanted it. For some things, anyway, Violet didn't forget that Olivie was used to having baths in a river, outside. They didn't even have bathtubs or showers and things...and it didn't sound like they did in the Greenwood either. Violet was used to having baths with Mum or Síomha or Susan, or sometimes Lasairín or Damhnait, but the way Olivie and Daphne's families did it seemed like too much to her.

Blaise and Tracey's families were actually super normal, mostly. Blaise lived with his mum and her husband, who he called Jack. (Jack wasn't Blaise's dad, Violet was pretty sure.) They actually had two houses, a big old country manor — built like two hundred years ago by some English lord or something, back when England still owned Ireland — that his mum inherited from a previous husband (also not Blaise's dad?), and Jack's house in Cork, which was a lot less fancy but still nice. Mostly he spent holidays at the manor and the rest of the year at Jack's house, he'd started going to a muggle primary school in Cork since his mum and Jack got engaged. Jack was the CEO and owner of some company that did some fancy high-tech computer thing, Violet didn't know enough about computers to know what Blaise was talking about, it was a thing he'd been working on for a while but the company was really taking off over the last couple years, at this rate Jack was actually going to be richer than his mum pretty soon. Some of the other kids thought it was weird that Blaise's step-dad was a muggle, but he just ignored them, Violet wasn't even sure if he noticed.

(The company was called Leinster Electromagnetic Systems, but that didn't make any sense, because Blaise said they were based in Cork, but that was in Munster, not Leinster. Blaise said Jack started the company in Wexford, and later moved to Cork for complicated business reasons — and Wexford was in Leinster, okay then.)

Tracey lived in the Davises' manor, somewhere in England, with her mum and her grandfather and a bunch of other Davises — not her father, he died in the war, like Susan's parents (and also Harry's). It sounded pretty nice, all big and fancy like Ancient House — though not as big and fancy as Ancient House, because the Blacks were stupid wealthy even compared to other magical noble families — but Tracey didn't want to talk about it. Actually, the way she didn't want to talk about it, stiff and quiet, her eyes on her plate, picking apart a crêpe without eating any of it, was giving Violet a bad feeling...

Millie's home sounded kind of like Olivie's and Daphne's? Well, sort of, not quite. They owned a big chunk of land in England somewhere, and there were a bunch of other families living there, clumped together in little villages, and there were lots and lots of farms and orchards and things. That sounded close to Olivie's and Daphne's — the way they were spread out into a bunch of tiny villages more like Olivie's, the Greenwood had the one big town instead. Millie's place, people were all...sharing and friendly and stuff, but not as much, in the same way, from the sound of it. More, like, all the families in a village shared the farmwork, and there were some buildings that everyone used, but they made a bigger deal about people's houses and their stuff being theirs — Olivie's and Daphne's people didn't seem to care about that as much. Also, Mlilie's family owned a lot more, like, forested hills and stuff that they didn't do anything with, just left alone. Sometimes they'd go out and gather nuts or mushrooms or whatever, but they didn't cut down the trees so they could put farms there or anything like that.

But people did live there — they just weren't human people. There were a bunch of people on Millie's family's land who were actually deer and swans. (Sometimes someone came by who was something else, cats or wolves or owls, but mostly it was deer and swans.) Like the cat-people! Were those the same kind of people? Um, Violet couldn't remember what they were called... There were a bunch of them with the Starlighters? Wilderfolk, yeah, that was it — they were wilderfolk, that was cool! Violet knew some wilderfolk, they were nice! They acted kind of weird sometimes, but not in a way that was really any more confusing to Violet than normal people could be, so. Violet mostly only met cats, though, she never met anyone else. Could the people who were swans fly? Oh, that was so cool, jealous...

Violet got a couple kind of funny looks when she said that Mum brought her to meet some Starlighters, she still went to say hi every once in a while — she knew wilderfolk, werewolves, vampires, and even a couple of nymphs. (Only a couple though, they mostly weren't in Starlight...but Daphne there were lots at the Greenwood, oh cool! they were nice.) The kids near her mostly just seemed a little surprised, but not really in a bad way, but that she was friends with Starlighters would get to the more mean kids later, and they would be mean about it. Because they were mean.

(Cassie would later suggest she maybe shouldn't have talked about that, but it wasn't her fault, Millie mentioned wilderfolk first...)

Anyway, the deer- and swan-people mostly spent all their time as deer and swans, off in the woods, but sometimes they came down to hang out. Millie saw some of them a lot because— Oh, her grandpa was a deer-person! And she had a bunch of wilderfolk cousins and stuff, so, they would play together sometimes. Millie seemed a little embarrassed talking about them — Violet later put together she was worried they would be mean and racist about it — without really thinking about it Violet leaned over and looped her arm around Millie's, but that was so cool, though! She never met a deer-person before, only cat-people, and it was so cool that the swan-people could fly (jealous), could she come over and say hi sometime...?

Their group managed to talk about their homes and their families and stuff for most of their time. Violet was babbling about going to Egypt with Mum and Síomha for a duelling thing over Easter break — Millie and Blaise both heard of Mum's duelling stuff before, which was kind of a surprise — when she noticed the music suddenly stopped. Lady Edna waited a moment for everyone to turn her way before saying... Well, it was long and super fancy and polite or whatever, but she was saying was that it was time for everyone to go home — lovely to see you all, must do this again, please get out of my house. (But nicer than that, obviously.)

...Violet hadn't realised that much time had passed already, but okay. There was a bit of noisy mess then as everyone got up and said goodbye — you didn't need to say goodbye to everyone to be polite, but if you wanted to make a point about being friends or whatever then you probably should. It was a little long, and slow, and annoying, made even more slow and annoying by people Violet hardly even talked to coming over to say goodbye. Violet didn't mind Ernest and Tony dropping by, since she knew them from school, but she was pretty sure she didn't even like Draco, and she was pretty sure Lavender didn't like her. Whatever.

It seemed like Millie was a little surprised when Violet gave her a hug goodbye, but she was so shy, seemed like she could use one. And and, people who couldn't talk right had to stick together, right? Also, she was going to come over to meet the deer-people, remember? Sorry, they were friends now, that's how this worked.

Olivie thought that was very funny, bursting into bouncy giggles — that wasn't a joke, Violet was being completely serious...

Anyway, there were a lot of people here who needed to get through the floo, but they actually got out pretty close to the front of the group. Mum came to find Violet and Susan, made sure they already said goodbye to all of their friends, and then they were thanking Lady Edna for the invitation and her hospitality and everything, and then they were walking out. A couple helper people were waiting near the floo room to give them their cloaks, and then Mum was picking her up, and they were leaving through the annoyingly spinny green fire.

Violet had a feeling Mum just didn't want to stay there anymore. Maybe her talk with the adults hadn't gone very well, and she wanted to get away? She didn't have any better ideas, but it seemed kind of rude to ask.

Once they were safely back at home, Mum set Violet back down — a wave of cold magic crackled over her, cleaning off the soot she'd picked up in the floo again. Biting out a sharp sigh, Mum groaned, "That was bloody tedious, Young Aonghus save me from interminable small-talk." Violet frowned — wasn't Aonghus a Gaelic god? She wasn't sure a god of what exactly, wasn't one of the ones she heard about all the time. But she thought Mum was Cambrian, why was she swearing by Gaelic gods all of a sudden? Magical religion was confusing... "Did you two have a decent time, at least?"

Susan was already taking off her over-robe, Violet guess that thing might be kind of a lot to wear all the time. Shrugging, she said, "It was all right. We were sitting away from the annoying people, they didn't make too much trouble."

"Daphne's nice! And M-M-Mmmmillie, bleh..."

"That was Daphne Greengrass, right?" Mum asked.

"Yeah, she was sitting with us," Susan said. "I hope you don't mind visiting the Greenwood over the summer — I'm pretty sure Violet got an invitation."

"No, that's fine. I used to spend some time there myself now and then, when I was younger. I wouldn't want to live there permanently, but it's a pleasant place to visit. And Millie was, ah..."

"Millicent Boh-Bulstrode. Wasn't your mum one of them?"

"A Bulstrode? Sure. Never had much to do with the family, honestly — there were, ah, political difficulties. It's a long story."

"She's r-wr-rreally nice! Um. There are wilderfolk there, lots!" Violet noticed she was kind of bouncing again thinking about it, but she couldn't really help it. Hearing Millie talk about home, there was this game they played up in the hills, running around and— It just sounded fun was all, and, she'd made friends, she was excited was all...

Mum was smiling at her, for some reason. Maybe the bouncing? Violet knew she was silly sometimes, so. "Oh yeah, they're known for that, in some circles. There's a lot of gossip about, ah, the Bulstrode family and the wilderfolk in the neighbourhood being very close, if you know what I mean."

"Millie said her g-g-g-g—" Huff. "Grand. pa. Hers is a d-d-d-deer-person! Has lots of c-cousins and stuff, it's very cool."

"Violet wants to go visit and play with the wilderfolk running around in the woods."

"It sounds fun is all! and wilderfolk are nice!"

"Hey, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just explaining." Oh, right, obviously, Susan wasn't a weird magic-racist person, she knew that...

"Well, I'm sure we can arrange a visit with the..." Mum trailed off, her head tilting. "You know, now that I think about it, my grandmother is wilderfolk. A swan."

Violet gasped, she could feel her eyes popping wide. "Really? So, she's mine too, right? Um, my g-g-great-grr-rrr— Ugh..."

"Your great-great-grandmother, yes. My mother told me about her, but I don't think we ever met — like I said, political difficulties. She might still be alive, mages can live that long, though she'd be getting up there in years by now. I can write to the Bulstrodes and ask, if you like."

"...Okay." Violet never had a grandmum before, and that was a weird thought, she'd probably screw it up? Like, be weird and awkward, because she didn't know what to say. But, she was a swan-person, and the cat wilderfolk at least were really hard to offend, so it was probably fine. "D-d-d-did you know swan-people can fly?"

Mum laughed. "Yes, silly girl, of course they can."

"That's so cool! I d-didn't know p-peh-p-p—" Ugh, talking was hard, and it was even worse when she was excited about something.

"Humans can fly too, you know — we just need tools to do it. Hey, we have a few hours before dinner, do you want to go flying?"

Violet was so surprised by that — Mum said it so casual, like going flying was just a normal thing people did sometimes — that she couldn't figure out what to say. So Susan said, "Not me, thanks. I don't like broom-flying, makes me nervous. If you two want to go I can just stay in and work on school stuff, maybe take a nap — I'm kind of worn out from tea, honestly."

Oh, brooms, Violet kind of forgot flying broomsticks were a thing. "K-kids can use those? I thought they were an a, an a, an adult thing?"

"You shouldn't do it alone — you should always have an adult there, to catch you if you fall — but yes, children can fly. Do you want to go try it out?"

"Yes!" Violet was bouncing again, she couldn't help it, she forgot people could fly, that was— "Yes I want to g-g-g-g– fly, that's so cool!"

Grinning at her, giggling a little under her breath, Mum said, "Well, let's go fly, then! Susan, you sure you'll be all right on your own?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, you two go have fun."

"Okay, darling, go up and change quick, trousers and a nice jumper — it'll be windy in the air." Violet was nearly out of the room before Mum even finished the sentence, her shoes noisily clunking on the stairs as she took them at a run, her skirt going fwish fwish fwish fwish with every step. She almost couldn't believe she was going to go learn how to fly, that was so cool...

Violet really loved magic sometimes.

---

[Anókí shómereth ghal hasshalóm] — This is supposed to be biblical Hebrew, the spelling a little off, reflecting the fact that this is from Violet's POV and Cassie doesn't speak Hebrew. If it's not quite sensical, well, good? Cassie doesn't speak Hebrew, so it's really not supposed to be.