Harry Potter 1. Chapter 1

As her shoes hit ground, droplets sprayed from the cobbles. Her breath left her mouth in long, curling bouts of steam; her nosed burned from the chill. Tightening her grip on a rucksack, she darted through crowds of those apparating onto the street. Lamposts began self-lighting, and chimneys began steady plumes of smoke to the rain-cloud darkened sky.

Small for her age, with rain-soaked black hair, eyes turned downward as she dipped and dodged through the crowd, one arm extended to reach the rusty metal stairwell rung. She swung herself over the rusted first stair and took the steps by doubles, chest heaving. If there was one thing that would go as expected for the day, it would be that she arrive home promptly before her uncle began closing shop below.

The moisture swollen door creaked as she eased it open, sliding in carefully. Apart from a sour smell drifting through the floorboards from the apothecary below stair, the flat had an air of cheer. Home-spun throws covered the threadbare couch, and incense burned steadily over a cracking fireplace to ward off the scent of roasted newts.

Quickly, the girl deposited her rucksack in a small bedroom that was her own, gangly legs maneuvering over discarded jumpers. Her chilled hands smoothed over her damp hair before removing the slightly-too-large jacket to hang above the wood-stove. A breath of air released from her lungs in a rushed sigh she hadn't realized she had been holding.

Moments later, a dinner had begun brewing over the range, and a loaf crisped in the stove. She had just set the whistling kettle from the stove as the door opened, and a broad-shouldered man side-stepped through the door.

"Isolde?"

Eamon Saeran was a slight man with gangly limbs that seemed to give the impression of a wisened crane. His coffee-coloured hair combed carefully from a face that gave clear vision to high cheekbones and a set of earthy green eyes. Her uncle removed his coat and had just begun to sit and begin the process of freeing his feet from rain-dampened boots when he noticed the girl.

"I started supper," she stated as she began carefully pouring from the kettle to a chipped teapot.

"Good, can't say that I was able to step out today. Hogwarts must be getting ready to head back to school, all the students rushing in today to finalize orders."

Christmas holiday from Hogwarts always livened the alley. Shopkeeps counted the days until the wizarding school released its wards to the public. They came by the dozens to stock up supplies they had run low on, order robes they had outgrown, replace hefty texts that had been misplaced. It was perhaps her uncle's favorite time of the year – the looming sight of higher revenue atop a hill of slow days filled with knuts, sickles and - perhaps if you were lucky – a galleon or two.

Isolde had always loved the days before the scarlet train left King's Cross Station. Wide-eyed children tripping over their laces as they gazed in wonder upon the shops that were suddenly not just filled with wares that only interested grown-ups, but wands that soon their fingers would wrap around to make magic, ingredients that would turn empty cauldrons to fragrant potions, broomsticks that did not just hang teasingly in widows, but were meant for Quidditch.

Next year, she told herself softly, that would be her.

The pair ate quietly, exchanging off-hand commentary over the crispness of the rye, the batches of rats that had been spleened, whether or not the girl-child had broken in her new Christmas shoes. It was not filled with awkward pauses, for the uncle and niece had lived together more than they had ever lived apart.

"I think every day you look more like Maeve," Eamon glanced to his niece before mopping his bowl with a crust.

"You have her look. I don't tell you enough, but I'm grateful she had a daughter before she passed that looked her image so well. Aside from the eyes and hair, you could have been her twin."

She had only the smallest memories of her mother. A tortoiseshell brush in hand as a younger version of herself watched her from a mirror as she began to sweep the bristles through her hair; a soft song sung by a dying fire; a lingering scent of roses. Maeve Saeran had died when her daughter was five, leaving her in the care of her older brother. Isolde had always loved to hear about her mother.

Aside from a single photograph of her parents standing side-by-side in her grandfather's garden, she had never laid eyes upon her sire. Varick Cobriana had left when Maeve had realized she carried a child, and despite a small sum of money sent anonymously every month, he had no contact with his daughter. During nights when her uncle had consumed too much firewhiskey at the Leaky Cauldron, Eamon would make dark comments that only when her mother had died had the money come.

Isolde stacked their dishes to wash later in the sink as her uncle clicked on the wireless and began listening to a program that in public company he would deny sorely that he listened to. His fingers uncreased the lines in his copy of the Prophet he had left folded upon the coffee table,and settled into his arm-chair.

He hadn't suspected that she had left the apartment for the day – for her often reminded her that it was strictly the only rule he had asked of her, that while he worked in the apothecary she could otherwise join him, or get express permission to wander within a designated proximity.

Dark columns in The Daily Prophet had cited numerous abductions of witches and wizards that had yet to be located, and down the Alley from Saeran Apothecary, the sweet shop owned by a witch and her brother – a well-known Squib – had been set alight in the night.

Despite her otherwise rule-abiding nature, there was only so much that changed in Diagon Alley. She had watched the remainder of holiday wreathes and trees being removed by purple-robed wizards, and had roamed the Magical Menagerie, where Mrs. Merrythrope let her hold the kittens. Eventually the kitten had fallen asleep, and the purple-robed Diagon Alley Embassadors had begun sweeping errant pineneedles. It had not been entirely her own doing that not three hours had gone by since the apothecary had opened that she had become inexplicably bored.

To her own defense, she had genuinely debated returning to the Menagerie, where Mrs. Merrythrope would sometimes pay a sickle to clean, but eventually she had explored beyond Eamon's border to the Diagon Alley Library & Records.

The scent of parchment had washed over her like a warm breeze as small stoves let out warmth between the ceiling-high bookcases. Quiet classical came from the wireless at the librarians' counter, but otherwise quiet emanated from the tombs of textbooks and old Prophet collections.

Isolde hadn't been sure what had brought her to the Birth & Death Records counter, but she had found herself writing her own name along with her mother's and her father's and handing the card over to a hook-nosed librarian who had given her a skeptical look. Not long after she had disappeared, had the librarian begun wandering back and forth with scroll after scroll, charmed parchment after book.

Eamon didn't need to know about the rumors came to stone as she read about Varick Cobriana and Maeve Saeran. She didn't need to tell him about how hours later, she had managed to find not only where the wizard in the yellowed photographed worked, but where he lived, and how the half of a galleon he sent monthy by that evil pecking owl that had been the reason they could scrape by suddenly made her feel too warm.

Laying quietly in the night as she listened to her uncle snore across the hall, Isolde dug up the photograph book her uncle had given her years ago. She flipped through the smiling, laughing photographs of her mother, the giggling pictures of herself as a baby, and the wizened waves of her grandparents to the very last page where a stern face stared out at her.

Everyone had always told her how much she looked like her mother. She had Maeve's curls, her high cheekbones and heart-shaped mouth. Their eyes were both wide almonds, and their noses sloped at the same degree. But whereas her mother had hair that reminded Isolde of mahogany and eyes that captured the exact color of the Irish moors, Isolde had taken the look of her father.

In the photograph, his face looked stern but smiling. It looked as though perhaps just moment before the camera flashed, her mother had elbowed him to force the grin. His dark crow-black hair fell in his face, almost obscuring the unusual shade of amber in his eyes – like molten butterscotch.

Varick Sigfried Cobriana.

Half a galleon had never seemed like so little.

* * *

Her quill trembled over a sheet of parchment. Nerves coiled and twisted in her abdomen, but she couldn't place the emotion as resentful or nervous. An hour had passed, and the only words in the sloping script that Eamon had taken so long to teach her, were;

_Mr. Varick Sigfried Cobriana_

Would she tell him that she looked as he did? That they had the same golden eyes and obsidian hair? That she found herself occasionally argumentative as clearly that was a trait he must possess as an attorney? Or would she tell him that she hated him for not wanting to be a part of her life?

Another hour passed before another, and Isolde stowed away the quill and crumpled the parchment before adding it to the stove.

Two months had passed since her bout to the library. Every day, she had sat down with quill and parchment ready to confront the man who had sired her. Hours passed as sounds from the shop drifted through the floorboards, the brass bell ringing as the door opened and closed. She never managed to get more than a feeble hello on the paper, and every day the four little words ended in the stove.

Isolde remembered her first Christmas with Eamon. She had been little, but she remembered him bursting through the door to her room with a merry laugh. She had only been there a few months, but he had turned the office into a proper girl's room with hanging curtains and a peach and clover coloured quilt on a white iron bed. He had hauled her from the warmth of her covers down the hallway as she shrieked with laughter, and had deposited her infront of a albeit small but fragrant tinseled tree.

She had gotten a stitched toy Niffler, whom she had named Rupert. There had been foil-wrapped chocolates and a jumper of knitted purples and greens, and a photobook wrapped in an old issue of The Prophet. Perhaps her favorite memory of that Christmas, was the look of surprise on her uncle's face when she handed him the picture she had coloured at day-school, carefully tied with ribbon.

They had certainly had difficult times - when they had to cut the black spots from potatoes because a rock had broken the shop window, or the day they had sold her mother's charm bracelet because there hadn't been enough money for shoes. Her uncle worked long hours, his apothecary lights were on long after other shops had shuttered their windows. The half a galleon that arrived at the first of the month in the claws of a bad-tempered eagle owl was taken bitterly, but it had always been taken.

If Eamon had noticed the slowly reducing pile of parchment in the sitting room, he never mentioned it. As spring slowly blossomed with the humid heat of summer, no owl to Mr. Varick Sigfried Cobriana had left the flat, and Isolde had decided that knowing the wizard wasn't something of need.

"Isolde! An owl for you!"

Jerking awake as the door flung open to reveal a toothy grinning uncle, she rolled from bed to land in a heap on the floor. Shoving a shoe from face, she looked up at the wizard with bewilderment.

"An owl!"

He ushered her into the living room where a great horned owl sat preening its feathers at the kitchen table. It was unusual enough – an owl with a pendant round its neck – but that it stood on the table. How many times had he cursed and swatted the birds away, calling them pests, when they landed there? She couldn't possibly count, but before the great raptor's clawed toes sat a scarlet scroll.

Her hands lifted the scroll that felt like a brick, and stared at the seal that glistened in creamy white wax. The crest of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry pressed carefully in its profile.

Prepared for the scream that ripped forth from her mouth, Eamon dug his fingers in his ears as the owl hooted its displeasure at the sudden noise and took off through the window. She ran through the living room, twirling as she lifted the unopened parchment high above her head, laughing like the weight of a thousand kilograms had been lifted from her shoulders.

She was going to Hogwarts this year.

Eamon stared over the list of school supplies with her, his mouth lip-syncing over three sets of robes, brass scales, crystal phials, protective gloves. His lips split to a grin at the word _wand_ and he let loose a laugh at her expression filled with the awe she visioned that she was so envious of those other students she had watched flood Diagon Alley with dreams of their first year of Hogwarts.

"It'll be expensive. The potions equipment was always the worst, but we're in luck there. Plenty of that to go around. I've been saving," Eamon seemed to be whispering to himself.

"A wand," the word fell out of her mouth as though it were the most delicious word uttered.

It was weeks away, but her uncle insisted they begin early, 'Prices always go up when everyone gets their letters. Seems like we got yours a bit early, we'll be right on time for the off-season,' he had said in a cheer of those that feel they have been given a stroke of luck for the first occasion.

The night before their expedition of Diagon Alley to begin accruing her school supplies, she lay awake in wonder. Her dreams were filled with ravens, serpents, lions, and badgers.

"You'd think the sodding bastard thought I was going to send her to school naked!"

Isolde paused as she slipped from bed, reaching for a set of jeans that she had purposefully left out in the night on the fire escape railings – for jeans on the day of school-supply shopping should not smell like mandrake root - and lifted her head.

"How much is there, Eamon?"

She recognized the voice of her uncle's employee and her childhood sitter, Maureen Kelspir, who she imagined had been recruited to take her to the stores in which her uncle had made expressions of deep torture – like the second-hand robe store that had advertised, 'Look your witchiest without being rich-iest'.

"More than I could ever spend for her supplies!"

"Maybe that isn't such a bad thing, Eamon. I looked in Miss Withschein's – Isolde would drown in the robes that they have for first years – and some of these things are going to be more of an expense than they were when you or I went to Hogwarts."

Isolde listened to the shrieking whistle of the kettle, and quickly yanked on her clothes. She ran a brush through curls that were too wild For The Day of School Supplies Shopping before stepping out of her room quietly. Taking special care to make as little noise as possible on the creaking boards.

"Not a single bloody letter for that girl, Maureen! Not a single damn one the entire time she's been alive. Just sickles and galleons in fancy silk purses. Money isn't going to replace the years she's spent with a dead mother – my bleeding baby sister – and an arrogant jackass father!"

Maureen stood with her back to Isolde, leaning against the counter as she poured hot tea in two cups and precariously dropped sugar cubes in the amber liquid. She was pretty – and Isolde had always wondered why the witch hadn't just come out and said she would have liked to be more than an employee to her employer – with red hair that ran down in waves and cheerful blue eyes.

"She'll hear you, Eamon! Maybe it's been best that Varick hasn't been sticking his nose around Isolde. There are all those rumors about the Cobrianas, and I can't say I haven't read the name more than once in an unsavory column in The Prophet. He let you have her when there were other requests,"

Feeling her face heat, Isolde stepped backwards. When her mother had died, Isolde had stayed with her maternal grandparents, but Isleen and Padraic Saeran had been elderly and it soon became clear they could not keep up with the needs of a small child.

Eamon had not been the first of Maeve's brothers to come forward to claim their neice. Seamus had come over often, but as a Curse Breaker for the Ministry of Magic and Gringotts, his lifestyle hadn't right atmosphere for molding young minds, and he had stepped aside when Eamon offered up his home to the orphaned girl.

"Over my dead body would I have handed her over to some strange woman she had never met before! I know how those people raise their brood – letting house elves babysit and teach them how to step on the faces of working wizards. My sister would have rolled in her grave had she thought that Alarice Cobriana wanted to wrap her snakey fingers around her daughter."

Maureen shook her head, setting the mugs of steaming tea on the table before taking a seat. She splayed her fingers in a perch over her mug as she watched the steam.

"I'm never going to say Isolde would have done better with them. I know it wouldn't be true. But Eamon, he had a rightful claim, and he gave her up to you. Maybe out of selfishness – but if he wants to send galleons to his daughter so she can have everything she ever dreamed of for her biggest dream – to go off to school – then be happy. It only benefits Isolde."

Clearing her throat quietly as she stepped in to the kitchen, she watched her uncle and Maureen glance up to her in surprise. They traded nervous glances at each other before shifting awkwardly in their chairs. There was a moment of silence, and Isolde debated saying words that could not be unsaid.

"Are there scones?"

Maureen smiled instantly, standing up to dig a frosted pastry from a paper bag and poured her a cup of tea as Isolde sat at the table with her uncle who seemed to slowly turn the color of cranberries before her eyes.

"He sent money? For my school supplies?"

Eamon groaned, his hand covered his eyes as he glanced over to Maureen. He shoved a small piece of crumpled parchment in his niece's direction.

_For Isolde's schooling supplies. I trust this to be sufficient._

There was no signature, no particular person of address. Just neat, spiky handwriting that seemed to have not had sufficient time for the ink to dry before it had been folded.

"You can send it back, if you'd like. I don't need brand new robes."

Maureen paused as she set the plate before her, her eyes watching carefully between uncle and niece.

"And I like it here. With my uncle."

A slow smile spread across Eamon's face as Isolde decided that it was true – there could be no doubt. Would she have wanted to stay with a woman who she had never met in the wake of her mother's sudden death? Did she hate that she had grown up with second-hand jumpers and spending evenings sweeping beetle wings and counting rat tails? The answer was no.

There was an ache inside – an ache that Isolde had always called the father-ache – that had seemed to swell in the last few moments, but it was an ache she was familiar with. She had imagined on countless nights as the moments clicked before her eyes drifted close of trips with a mysterious father to Fortescue's for icecream, of piggy-back rides on the shoulders of an obsidian-haired wizard, of being taught to ride a broom with broad olive-colored hands keeping her steady. Those moments had been cherished in the days when she convinced herself they would happen – but it had been five years since her mother had fallen asleep to never wake again – and Varick Sigfried Cobriana had never come.

"We're going to spend his damn money. We're going to spend it on brand new robes from Madame Malkin's, we're going to buy sweets at Honeydukes, on anything we bloody feel like spending on you today, and he can piss off!"

* * *

Maureen attempted to not spit out her tea at Eamon's outburst, but the laughter that followed managed to banish the chill that had entered the kitchen on an otherwise sweltering day.

Madame Malkin had guffawed at Isolde's slender frame as she measured, at Flourish and Blott's she teetered under the weight of canvas wrapped text books, and stretched her fingers inside of dragon-hide gloves in Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment's herbology section. Maureen's trolley seemed almost too full when they stopped outside of Ollivander's Wand Shop.

"Last thing on your list," Eamon grunted as he recovered from sitting awkwardly in the corner while Maureen had helped Isolde pick out a few articles of clothing when she was not supposed to be in uniform, as it seemed she had sprouted an inch or so in the last week.

"Other than the trunk, which they said will be done by tomorrow and I'll pick that up before I stop by for supper," Maureen seemed to be listing aloud.

Isolde stared at the dusty windows and up at the gold-lettered words above the wand shop. Her fingers trembled as they wrapped around the door and a feeling of excitement burst beneath her collarbone as the smell of ancient sawdust and something that just smelled like magic filled her nose.

Eamon and Maureen had told her what they had recalled their own parents telling them – that a witch or wizard goes to purchase their wand alone. They stood outside the shop as the door jingled close behind her.

Mr. Ollivander was a strange-looking wizard, Isolde decided shortly. She could see him weaving through the rows upon rows of stacked boxed wands, his fingers touching this label or that as he hummed quietly to himself, his gray hair in a wild mane about his face.

"Isolde Aideen Saeran-Cobriana. I had felt you would come today,"

He didn't leave the aisle he had wandered down, but rather seemed to wait for her to step deeper within the shop, where the smell of sawdust lingered with fresh scents of pine and rosewood, and the deep cloying smell of polish.

"Your mother's wand shot straight out of the box to her. Mahogany and unicorn tail hair, sixteen inches, rather springy. You could see the bond between the witch and wand instantly – but as I have always said, and as all wandmaker's say – the wand chooses the wizard. Perhaps in this case, however, we will substitute witch."

Appearing suddenly behind the counter, the wizened wandmaker watched Isolde carefully tread along the shelves as her eyes read labels that had worn away years ago.

"Your father's wand… it demanded to be found. It did not perhaps love him as most wands do love their charges, but sought him and found him to be worthy. Yew and phoenix feather. Fifteen inches. Unyielding."

It seemed that Varick Cobriana was slowly worming his way into her life, and for a moment she regretted looking for him. It appeared that once unearthed, he would not be buried again.

"Let's see… Yew and unicorn tail hair? Twelve inches, bendy."

The wand placed in her hand felt strange, as though her fingers had fallen asleep. Within moments, the wand had begun sprouting violet sparks.

"Definitely not, then."

Ollivander disappeared through another aisle, collecting boxes under his arm before reappearing. He unboxed another and placed it neatly in her palm.

"Maple and phoenix feather? Thirteen inches, suitably pliable."

A black smoke began to fill the shop from the wand's tip. Coughing, the elder wizard snatched the wand and hastily placed it back in its box.

Isolde swatted away wisps of the rancid smoke. Her head was beginning to ache, her heart felt sore. She had wanted sorely the tale of her mother's wand – one that leapt at the chance to be in her hand, to make magic with her words but a nagging doubt entered her mind.

She had never made magic the way children had. The stories of her uncle playing with balls of light as an infant had never entered her childhood. Her fingers had never made dandelions turn into lightning bugs, and she certainly had never blown up anything in the throngs of a temper tantrum. Maybe she wasn't magic – or in any case, magical enough – that a wand wanted her. Perhaps a wand would not choose her, and her palms began to sweat with the thought.

Without a wand, there would be no Hogwarts. As she listened to Ollivander mutter to himself in the deepest aisles of the wand shop, she thought of those boarding the scarlet Hogwarts Express, the fabled Sorting Ceremony in which you found where you belonged, and the classrooms filled with making things truly happen. Feeling sick at the thought, she turned her eyes to the door.

"Perhaps… yes, I can see this one."

He reappeared before her covered in dust of wand boxes' disrupted slumber, and deposited the creamy ivory case upon the counter. It was unlike any box he had brought out before – the case snapped open with a silver latch that revealed plush emerald velvet, and a wand that had to be the most beautiful she had ever seen.

Maeve Saeran's wand was pretty – in its mahogany surface Celtic designs weaved through its surface and had been the embodiment of her mother's traditional habits. Eamon's wand was rather simple, with clovers carved to the handle in a truly stereotypical Irish fashion, but this wand seemed a diamond in comparison to stones.

Its feathery white surface displayed careful thorny vines with rosebuds, its handle accented with a single stripe of black, and it tapered to a design of a fully blossomed primrose – as if blooming for spells.

"Aspen and dragon heartstring, sixteen inches, unrelenting."

In her hand, it felt like another finger had been added to her five. Its at first coolness seemed to blossom with warmth. It hummed between her fingers and as it raised – lights drifted down its length making it appear as though gold in her hand.

"Of course."

Excitement coursed through her blood as she watched its gold sparkles – like fireworks in the night – slowly drift from the blossomed primrose and fall over her hair. A smile appeared on her face in an expression she had felt only briefly in a few moments of her life but couldn't quite name.

"Only the best have aspen, Miss Cobriana. Secret dueling guilds, wizards and witches that find themselves in history books – the good and the bad – but it is not often I find myself watching an aspen wand choose a wizard. I will be watching you, for great things are sure to come."

Great things. The words coursed through her mind as she paid for her new wand, felt it hum in the case in her pocket. Ollivander's face was smiling, but he was watching her with more curiosity than he had when searching for her wand-companion.

Eamon grinned as she left the wand shop, her fingers clasped around the wand case in her pocket. Maureen expressed envy at its design and stunning pale colour.

Isolde curled up in bed with her wand wound between her fingers, listening to it hum.

'Only the best have aspen.' She wasn't a Squib. She would go to Hogwarts. She would do 'great things' and make magic and find a place to belong. Rather than dreams of badgers, serpents, lions, and ravens, Isolde dreamed of herself as a child, playing with balls of beautiful lights, of turning dandelions into lightning bugs, and standing before a scarlet train on an empty platform with her wand in hand.

* * *

((Author's Note: First chapter up! I'll be trying to update as often as possible. Next chapter leading up to arrival at Hogwarts))


	2. Chapter 2

Isolde jerked awake to the hot buzz of summer. She wiped sweat from her brow and pushed away the thin sheets that had tangled around her legs as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

A steady dripping from the faucet in the hall bathroom interrupted the silence, but an unnerved feeling had settled somewhere in her stomach and she shifted uncomfortably on the sweat-damp covers.

She could smell the scent of fireplaces, hear the crackling against the bricks, its warm breaths that outstretched from its coals.

Screams ripped through the night just as her eyes flew wide.

Eamon was at her door within moments, still buttoning his trousers as he tucked his wand in his pocket. Almost instantly, her fingers rewrapped around her own, momentarily lost in the sheets.

"Stay inside," As her mouth began to open in protest, her uncle shook his head, "there are masked wizards in the alley, Isolde."

Pictures of these wizards had glittered the Daily Prophet with tales of missing witches, muggles found strung up in neighborhoods of old wizard blood. She had watched their sneering silver masks in the flashes of cameras as they careened like reapers through streets.

The eerie sound of a child crying in the night filled the sound of roaring fires as Isolde followed her uncle to the door, and found her fingers clicking the lock behind him, listening for the whispered charm to keep it closed.

Outside the windows of their sitting room, Diagon Alley had burrowed into chaos. Witches in nightgowns clutched children as they ran from above-shop flats, wizards apparating with loud cracks on to the street as windows shattered and bolts of green, red, and violet lit up the cobbled alley.

A fire steadily burned inside of Tharroway's Scripture – the shop owned by a muggleborn wizard and his wife which had always displayed quills with nibs that seemed to glow, rolling parchment in every colour – and under the pressure of fire, the sound of ink bottles bursting interrupted the flames.

She lost her uncle's back in the crowds as he weaved towards the shop, dodging aurors in their purple and black robes, reaching for Mrs. Tharroway's child as he stood in his nappies on the curb. One moment the child had stood, stuffed teddy in hand, and then suddenly he had been gone.

"Get him! Get my baby! Delbert! Get him!"

Looking down, she realized her hands were shaking, her chin trembling. The fire outstretched to lick the sides of the sweet shop and suddenly sparks lit the roof of Maharaja Tea House. It spread, a roaring beast that heated the summer night to blistering centigrade, but her feet seemed unable to move.

"They aren't sure where he is. The aurors are out looking for him," Eamon hugged a tumbler of fire whiskey in hand as he stared out the window as aurors questioned the sobbing Mrs. Tharroway who shoved away her husband as he reached to her with a blanket.

"What would they want with a child?"

Maureen had arrived moments after the fire had been subdued at the tea house, and aurors turned their wand on the blistered walls of Sugarplum's. Her hair had smelled of smoke, but she had come through the door to find Isolde standing at the window, and her shaking had stopped when the witch had firmly wrapped her arms around her.

"Delbert is a muggleborn. Elizabeth is a pureblood. I'm sure with the propaganda you're hearing come from the Prophet that these wizards are spouting, they don't like the pairing."

Isolde's mother's family had been pureblooded, though there was a Squib or two among their rank. Eamon had never put much on blood, and nobody had turned their noses at Seamus' muggleborn wife Maryanne.

"Do you think they're really targeting muggleborns?"

Eamon turned from the window to look at Maureen. She trembled in the glow of fires outside, her blue eyes wide with worry.

"If they are, Maureen, you're staying here. While Isolde is at school, you can take her room."

Nodding, Isolde wrapped her arms around herself as the amethyst and raven-robbed aurors finished the last sparks of Tharroway's ruined quill shop, and had made room for the brown robed clean-up crew to begin its work.

"Back to bed, you have to be up early in the morning. We need to leave here early for King's Cross."

Despite the budding excitement that had lead to the moments of her departure, Isolde went to bed with a feeling of dread.

Maureen was the smartest witch she had ever known . Her delicate fingers measured out perfect ounces and grams of botanicals, her knife made even cuts in mandrake roots, and her knowledge of the wizarding world had filled childhood bedtime stories with delight. It didn't seem right that because Maureen's mother and father were muggle greengrocers, she could be hunted.

As her eyes grew heavy with the lull of exhaustion that follows spontaneous adrenaline, Isolde felt a dark thought enter her mind.

Thank Merlin she was a pureblood.

* * *

Her pulse hummed as they maneuvered through the crowds of King's Cross Station. Eamon dipped and dodged with the trolley, his hand firmly gripped around her elbow.

Isolde had never spent much time around muggles. She had never really left Diagon Alley, other than to visit her grandparents in Ireland, or visit her Uncle Seamus and his wife at their flat in London. She found their clothes to be peculiar, and many seemed to be reading newspapers that did not move.

Lifting her face, her eyes zoned in on the wall between Platforms 9 and 10. Her breath hitched in her throat as Eamon stopped before the entrance, and hurriedly stepped through the portal.

Letting loose a deep breath, Isolde rushed through, knocking firmly onto her uncle's back.

Instantaneously, everything physical around her disappeared.

The scarlet train trailed plumes of steam, its bells whistled and all around them, students waved goodbye to their families, rushing forth to reunions with classmates. Trunks were loosened from trolleys and handed up to awaiting Platform employees, faces peered out from inside compartments.

"Remember, you have a change of robes in your rucksack. You'll want to change into them before you arrive at Hogwarts."

Eamon's words did not appear to reach his niece, and he smiled as her wide butterscotch eyes roamed the platform.

"There's Seamus. Glad he could get away from the office in time to see-!"

Seamus Saeran was a handsome wizard with fine, masculine features of high cheekbones and brooding green eyes with hair the color of dark chocolate. He waved a big hand as he dipped around a redheaded family and gave her a firm hug.

"Wouldn't have missed it. Eamon, you know Cyprus Lupin. In Maeve's year."

Cyprus Lupin was a frequenter of Saeran Apothecary. He worked in the Ministry of Magic, but Isolde couldn't remember where. He looked older than her mother would have, with graying hair and the face of a weary man. Smiling politely, he glanced behind him where his wife stood with a young boy.

"My son, Remus, will be going this year as well. Roselyn had mentioned that Isolde was eleven. Time's flown by," the aged wizard turned his hazel eyes down to her.

His expression was difficult to read, but for a blinking moment, Isolde thought he had narrowed his eyes at her.

"Doesn't seem like so long ago that we were getting on the train," agreed Seamus, apparently not noticing the exchange as Eamon took her luggage to be boarded.

* * *

Shifting through the crowded corridor, Isolde looked for a free compartment. Each of those to which she poked her head into had been full, and she blamed the long goodbye on the platform. Only a few had remained when she had rushed to board the Hogwarts Express, taking one last look at her uncles waving goodbye.

"We're full!"

"Sorry! Try the back!"

Finally sliding open the door of the last compartment on the Express, Isolde found it delightfully empty, and quickly scooted inside to place her rucksack by the window. Countryside blurred outside the window, trickles of steam occasionally passed by – and excitement had once again budded in her chest.

"I'm sorry. Do you have room for three?"

Isolde's uncle had encouraged her to stick alongside Remus, but somewhere from checking in her owl to the train's crowded corridor, she had lost the slight young boy.

The three in question stood expectantly awaiting her answer as she nodded. They trouped through the door, an unusual gathering.

"You can't imagine how rude some of these people are. There was one compartment that clearly had room for three – but of course they were older girls –!" The speaker blinked as she took her seat, "And of course now we're being rude."

"Isolde Saeran-Cobriana." She smiled sheepishly.

"Now that's a mouthful. Heather Devaire." A pretty girl, with golden blonde hair and a pair of dark brown eyes, she glanced expectantly around the group as introductions were made.

Emmaline Rosier was a plump girl, with dark brown hair and a pair of smudged rectangular glasses that had been knocked off in the crowds of students, but her green eyes were friendly, albeit shy. She was Heather's cousin, though distantly.

Vivien Moores' father was an editor for the Daily Prophet, and her fiery auburn hair had been neatly rolled into a chignon, her clothes were unusual for a witch her age – a tailored skirt suit in an electrifying sapphire to match her eyes.

"We loaded up at the trolley. It's stuck at a compartment by four boys – all first years, I'm going to guess – they're haggling over the price of chocolate frogs."

Isolde had never had many friends. The population of those residing in Diagon Alley were either too young for a brood her age, or had the occasional visiting grandchild half her years. Her palms sweated as she attempted to join in the conversation, but found her voice catching.

After avoiding a suspicious looking lollie that Isolde had only assumed could be an acid pop, she picked over the candy from the trolley before deciding on a sugar quill. Her mouth busy, she listened to the banter between the three girls.

She had never felt a real need for friends. Maureen always made sure to stop by the flat before reporting in to her uncle, and she had spent most of her days growing up at day school, where the children had made fun of her ill-fitting clothes and home-cut hair.

Self-consciously, she picked at the hem of her skirt, which Maureen had carefully stitched and altered to fit, and glanced down to her dusty trainers. Vivien's suit looked like it had been purchased at Twillfit and Tatting's – an expensive shop in Diagon Alley that catered to witches who liked genuine gold embroidery. Emmaline's shoes looked freshly polished, and despite her loose clothing, her nails were manicured into perfect ovals with French tips. Heather's appearance wasn't any different.

Eamon had never believed in spending money on things they didn't need – it was simply because they didn't have the funds to do so – but Isolde felt out of place with her second-hand clothing, and holey shoes – and when the time came to change into their school robes, she felt relief.

"We're almost there," Emmaline pointed out the window at lights in the distant night. "I'm getting nervous," she admitted to Isolde.

"Me too," agreed the other three simultaneously, invoking jumpy smiles.

As the train steamed to a stop, and the first years clambered out of the Hogwarts Express, Isolde felt her hands tremble in her pockets. She had no explanation for the apprehension building as they boarded the small rowboats to the castle in the distance. While moments ago had been filled with excitement and anticipation, as the boats neared the glittering towers, Isolde felt sick to her stomach.

They followed the oversized Gamekeeper, Hagrid, to heavy doors where chatter echoed from within, and craned their necks around their group. Emmaline began cleaning her glasses repeatedly on her sleeve, clearing her throat every few moments as Vivien began clicking her nails against the stairwell.

"This is awful. I hate waiting like this," whispered Heather softly to Isolde, who nodded dumbly.

Each moment passing, the nausea feeling became more and more prominent in her mind. What if she actually vomited while being Sorted? Swallowing hard as a tall, stern looking witch appeared, Isolde decided that was _not_ how she wanted her first impressions to stick.

"First years, in a few moments you will follow me through the doors to be Sorted in to your Houses – Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin. These Houses will be your home, where you will reside within and make friends throughout. Your Head of House will be around after the feast to make introductions and give you house policies. I will call your names alphabetically. Any questions?" Mute, terrified silence met the witch, "Excellent. Follow me."

Out of their four, Isolde would be first to be Sorted, and she hoped suddenly she would be with at least one of the girls from their train compartment. They had been friendly, attempting numerous times to include her in conversations, and had saved her a place on their boat up to the castle. She didn't think she could do so well outside of the train's tight quarters.

Names were called as first years trouped up to sit on a stool before the Great Hall. All eyes watched as the leather hat came to life, whispering softly beyond their hearing until barking out loudly the House to which the student had been sorted, where clapping and cheers erupted.

"Isolde Saeran-Cobriana?"

Emmaline squeezed her hand as she left the other girls, her eyes locked on the stool before her. She quietly urged herself to not get sick on the professor's shoes as she took the seat, and her eyes went blind as the oversized hat dropped to her nose.

"Interesting mind… Ambition to do great things," A soft deep voice interrupted her silence, but it sounded thunderous in her own ears, "Brave and courageous, the definitive traits of a Gryffindor, but there is that ambition. An eagerness to prove yourself. Bloodlines do tell, young Cobriana, and as your surname suggests, I have just the place for you-!"

"_SLYTHERIN!_"

The process had seemed too quick, and as Professor McGonagall removed the hat from her head, she looked to the roaring table that waved her over, and a whisper ran through the others. Her feet numbly walked herself over to the long mahogany banquet table beneath silver and emerald flags, where she was clapped upon the back and greeted pleasantly.

"A Cobriana again. This year will be interesting," she heard someone mutter down the table as it quieted.

"At least you didn't get sick. You were looking rather green," whispered a friendly looking boy from across the table.

Her heart leapt when Heather began rushing to their table, hugging her suddenly in apparent relief, "I was really worried for a second I would go to Hufflepuff!" she whispered fiercely.

Isolde smiled as the girl took her seat next to her, and gripped her hand when Vivien was called to be Sorted and felt disappointment as she walked to Ravenclaw's cheering blue and bronze banners.

"My aunt will murder Ems if she isn't a Slytherin – I really hope she comes here," Heather chewed her lip anxiously as the alphabetical list dwindled down and Emmaline took her seat and within moments a bellowing hat proclaimed her a Slytherin.

Relief poured from Heather's mouth in a sigh as the bespectacled witch scrambled to the empty seat on Isolde's other side, her face bloodless.

"Hard part is over, Em, now there's just everything else," Heather cheerfully proclaimed as her cousin hastily gulped water from her goblet.

Letting out a long breath, Emmaline smiled sheepishly at Isolde, "At least I wasn't up there too long. Too bad about Vivien, I was hoping we would all stick together."

"Me too," admitted Isolde as they finished watching the Sorting, and the Headmaster went to the podium.

A feast appeared unlike any Isolde had seen before. Plates piled high with puddings, breads that tasted like hot butter, delightfully scented roasts and steaming pots of potatoes, carafes brimming with pumpkin juice spiced with cinnamon, and felt her mouth begin to water.

"I have never seen so much food," she stated dumbly as Emmaline began carefully maneuvering thick slices of beef to her plate.

"Clearly you've never been to one of my mother's parties," Heather sighed as she poured her goblet full.

She ate until her stomach felt as though it would split. Thick crowns of lamb, gravied roast beef, mashed potatoes studded with bacon, carrots swimming in sauce.

Suddenly, the dishes cleared as though they had never had food upon them, and filled with bowls of ice cream of every color, cakes iced with Slytherin crests, pastries brimming with cream.

"I can't eat anymore," whispered Isolde in horror as Emmaline laughed.

"You'll remember for next time," soothed Heather as she picked over pastries.

Time settled for her food to calm in her stomach, though she felt heavy as the Slytherin prefects called for first years and waved them to the front as the older students spilled from the Great Hall, patting full stomachs and grinning in sudden sleepiness that only large meals provide

* * *

"Passwords change every fortnight, you'll find them on the notice board in the common room the day before they change. Please do not share passwords, and return to your dormitory by curfew at night."

They traveled down a grand staircase that opened to a large corridor with an intimidating serpent statue. As the prefects neared, it seemed to shift on the stoned ground, its eyes appeared to be large-cut emeralds.

"The password this week is, 'Basilisk'," the serpent hissed, its marble tongue licking the air as it uncurled, revealing a wide spiral staircase. Heather gripped Isolde's hand as they walked down, entering the dungeons below.

Plush velvet couches greeted them in deep shades of green, and high-backed leather chairs the color of obsidian surrounded a large, crackling fireplace. Silken emerald drapes covered the stone walls, and thick carpets covered the floor. Isolde had never seen such finery.

Divided into boys and girls, they watched as the boy first years were escorted to their dormitories up a high set of stairs, and the girls followed their own prefect up their own set. They climbed for several minutes, coming to a wooden-floored corridor with ebony doors and shining silver name plates. Leaving them to locate their own quarters, the prefect excused herself.

"Found it!" called Emmaline from the continuing staircase. Having split up to locate their dormitories – for the area was much larger than originally estimated – Heather and Isolde climbed the staircase even higher to enter their own room.

"Well, you've worked off dinner," supplied Emmaline as Isolde gave a dithering look upon stopping outside their door.

"Who is Cayleen? Did anyone see her at the Sorting? Cayleen Travers?"

Warm wooden floors gave high contrast to the ebony four-poster beds curtained in silken drapes in a pale green, contrasting highly with the satin bedding of emerald and muted silver. The same drapes hung over three windows, dipping outside of the room to supply cushioned window seats with wooden cubbies beneath.

Two beds rested on the wall alongside the windows, the other two against the wall, each sported an ebony vanity with attached wardrobe that could easily also be used as desks. Hooks hung alongside the door, and a wood-burning stove sat in the middle of the room. Across from the wooden stove further down the length of a room, a couch and two plush chairs sat around a small table, which housed a vase of fragrant jasmine.

"You must be Cayleen," greeted Heather as she waved to a girl unpacking her trunk.

She was tall for her age, with fiery hair and in the soft light of the room, the eyes that shifted were deep gray. Already, she had unpacked the majority of her trunk, but she smiled as introductions were made and offered to help the other girls unpack as well.

"My brother's here too, Darryl. We're twins," Cayleen told her as they hung up Isolde's robes together.

Cayleen's eyes caught sight of Rupert, and a smile burst across her face, "I'm not the only one, then! I brought my teddy. Darryl made fun of me for hours – but I couldn't leave him behind."

Isolde picked Rupert from her trunk and smiled at Cayleen as she rushed to get her teddy and place him from a drawer in her wardrobe upon her bed. She adjusted the teddy's jumper and smiled sheepishly at her as the lights began to dim, signaling time to go to bed.

"Already?" whined Heather as she climbed into her four-poster across from Isolde's.

She had to admit she was disappointed the day could not last forever, but as she pulled the sheets up to her chin and watched the glass eyes of her niffler watch her as the lamps faded to darkness, she smiled to herself in the quiet.

"Today was a good day," she heard Cayleen whisper to herself from across the star-lit dormitory.

"It was," agreed Isolde to herself.

Making friends wasn't so difficult. She had spent the last hour talking about what would be on their timetables tomorrow. Her voice hadn't halted in the conversation – and she had even fit in a joke or two about potions that her uncle had over told at the supper table resulting in raucous laughter from her new roommates.

As her eyes drooped shut with exhaustion from a day of excitement and overeating, Isolde buried her face in her pillow as she smiled as a voice that sounded too much like Eamon's echoed in her thoughts,

_That wasn't hard now, was it?_

But what had that boy meant after her Sorting? A Cobriana again – and how would that make this year interesting?

Too tired for thoughts of her father, Isolde watched the stars as her eyes drifted close and the sound of the summer rain starting outside lulled her to sleep.

* * *

(Author's Note: I know I changed the Slytherin Common Room, but I never felt like Slytherin's dormitories should be below-ground when they're rumored to be the nicest of the dormitories in Hogwarts. The Common Room itself remains below grounds in the dungeon, but the dormitories go up staircases that bring them to a low-ground level. I'm also claustrophobic, and just the idea gives me the heebie jeebies. Next chapter will be re-introducing some commonly known HP characters – and Remus will make his re-entry!)


	3. Chapter 3

_Quicknote - Thank you SO much to those who began following Bloodline of Cobras this week. Shout outs to Pyscho Mutt, babbat92, dragoon109, JuniKitty4427, FonzFan, Lil Hatchet, Neon BunBun, and KilofriendofCharlie. Enjoy chapter three!_

* * *

"We're going to be LATE!" shrieked Heather as she sprinted into the room, wet hair plastered to her head, robes flying out behind her.

"I really don't think we're going to be late, the girl down the hall said the timetable says breakfast doesn't start for another hour," commented Emmaline dryly.

Glaring, the blonde ran a towel through her hair as she yanked clothing from her wardrobe. She had woken the dormitory up an hour ago, and Cayleen had showered first – expecting long lines in the bathroom – and was already dressed, reading a book quietly on her four-poster.

Isolde dragged a comb through her own wet hair and stared down at her uniform. Overnight, her wardrobe had been transformed. The grey V-necked jumpers now sported lines of silver and green, pinstriped ties with her House colors now appeared on hangers, and her robes had been stitched with the crest of Slytherin. In addition, a gray and silver scarf, knitted hat, and gloves had been folded into an empty cubby.

Emmaline had told her house-elves must've removed their clothing in the night to be replaced with house-coloured versions, but in the jumpers, Maureen's embroidered 'I.A.S-C.' still lay on the inner neckline. Isolde's fingers touched the careful stitching that her uncle's friend had spent hours on.

"You're just sitting there, Isolde! Breakfast!"

Within several minutes, the four trouped down to the Great Hall in uniform. They followed a larger crowd of Slytherins – who knew their way around the castle far better than the first-years – and took their seats at the long oak table.

"You know, I wonder exactly how they decide where we get paired up. I hope we have at least one class with Vivien," commented Heather sadly as she waved at the redhead from across the hall.

Vivien sat with several other Ravenclaws and waved enthusiastically, though returned to a conversation with a short-haired witch.

"I'm sure we will," Emmaline commented, "but I'm really hoping we all have classes with at least one of us. I don't like the idea of getting lost in the castle alone."

"Agreed," Cayleen muttered, glancing over the map of Hogwarts each of them had been supplied that morning. The tiny lines and even smaller labelling was difficult to read – and someone had broken out a magnifying glass to locate the lavatory nearest the Great Hall.

Professor Horace Slughorn began making his rounds with timetables, occasionally stopping to chat with students. When he reached the foursome sitting quietly over their goblets of pumpkin juice, he smiled broadly.

"How delightful it is to have fresh faces every year! Emmaline Rosier – I hear your father is doing very well in the Ministry of Magic these days -," he handed Emmaline her timetable, "And Heather Devaire! Your mother still writing those delightful columns in Witch Weekly? Wonderful!"

Heather's eyes ravaged her timetable as she held it close to Emmaline's and beamed, "Half our classes together!"

"Miss Cayleen Travers," Apparently, the head of Slytherin had not read up much on the Travers family.

"And of course, Isolde Saeran-Cobriana… I don't suppose you're in much contact with your grandfather, hm? He did write a fantastic book on the lineages of the Cobriana family. Supposedly, straight from Salazaar Slytherin. Pity you aren't close," He stopped to study her for a moment, "but with those eyes, it's no doubt your father's in you. Same eyes with the whole family."

Her timetable in hand, Isolde hovered alongside Cayleen. Together, they had Transfiguration and Charms together. Isolde was on her own for Defense Against the Dark Arts, but had herbology with Emmaline, and Astronomy with Heather in the evenings. While the three were in Potions, Cayleen would go to Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"Great. I'm alone for Herbology. If you don't see me in Charms, please let Professor Flitwick know that I was eaten by a magical potato," commented Heather dryly.

Isolde peered down at her map as they parted outside the Great Hall and eventually spotted a group of first-year Gryffindors discussing the same subject and its whereabouts and quietly began following them down the corridor.

"I have no idea where the bloody classroom is James, it's not like this map is readable!" snapped a black-haired boy as he followed a plump boy and a thinner boy with light brown hair.

"It really isn't," lamented the spectacled wizard alongside him, "Even with my glasses."

As she began questioning whether or not following the four had been a good idea, the brown-haired boy turned with an exasperated smile as he spotted the Slytherin.

His face turned down slightly, as he informed his house-mates he had gotten directions from Professor McGonagall, and said nothing to the witch. Confusion bouting in her thoughts, Isolde remained quiet as they located the large classroom and chose an empty desk by the front.

Remus had been friendly at the train platform. He had told her that he remembered her, and that he hoped they could sit together on the Hogwarts Express. They had lost each other in the search for an empty compartment, but Isolde had originally pegged it as a mere case of not wanting to get lost in the crowds after ensuring a seat.

The look on his face – of mild displeasure – had rattled her. Had he simply been kind as a courtesy, but now that they were not in the same Houses, he disliked her?

Isolde had never been disliked before. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she retrieved her textbooks from her bag. Feeling eyes on her head, she pointedly did not turn around, but faced the blackboard sternly as she awaited the professor's arrival.

"A Cobriana. Figures she'd be a Slytherin. I heard her father is on the assumed Death Eater list following You-Know-Who!" hissed a witch behind her and Isolde's face colored.

Varick Cobriana seemed to have a negative effect on every aspect of her life. He had entered her life without any physical presence, but seemingly a reputation. If that was why Remus Lupin hadn't wanted to talk to her, then she would write him off.

He knew first-hand that her father had never been a part of her upbringing, and a feeling of anger flitted within her at the thought that he was not correcting those who gossiped about her, but rather leaving them to their own assumptions.

Professor Vasili Shardae was a handsome wizard, with fine masculine features and olive-colored skin beneath jet-black stubble. He grinned pearly teeth and several girls behind Isolde burst into giggles.

"Doesn't appear that everyone made it on time, let's wait a few more moments for your classmates, shall we?"

He walked around the classroom, occasionally glancing at a pocket watch, when the door burst open to reveal two boys from her own House.

"Since it's the first day, I'm not deducting points for tardiness, but tomorrow that will change. Please take your seats," the professor gestured to those on either side of Isolde.

A boy with long black hair and an unpleasantly hooked nose took the seat to her left, dragging aged text books from a patched bag as his face heated with embarrassment. On her right, a handsome boy smiled cheerfully at her as he lounged in his desk comfortably.

"Introductions! The fast we learn each other's names, the quicker we are to getting along. I'll let you know that I have absolutely no patience for House rivalries within this classroom. Leave that to Quidditch and the House Cup, please. I expect equal participation and for each of you to arrive prepared," Professor Shardae took his place at the head of the classroom, "Let us begin."

The professor had them turn to the student on the end-desks, and Isolde turned to the long-haired boy to her left. He glanced at her quickly before averting his face, and listened to the instructions.

"You will know your partner's name, where he or she was born, and what they are most excited to learn in this class. I will be taking notes on who participates completely, and the House with the most detailed answers will be rewarded five points at the end of class! Begin!"

Isolde took out parchment and her quill and smiled at the boy.

"You go first," he muttered, holding his quill tightly in hand.

"Isolde Saeran-Cobriana. I was born in Ireland – Ballycastle, actually – but I grew up in London. We have a flat in Diagon Alley," the boy made no comments as he carefully wrote her answers, "I'm not sure what I'm most excited to learn about. Potions is really more my favourite subject."

Upon the admission, the boy looked up and stared at her oddly, "Potions?"

"My uncle owns an apothecary under our flat – Saeran Apothecary."

"I've been there," he rolled the quill in his hands, "You aren't looking forward to learning spells?"

Isolde paused for a moment and thought carefully. She wanted the points for Slytherin, hoping it would get her on the better side of her house-mates, but she was coming up empty.

"Werewolves. I want to learn about werewolves," she answered. "My uncle – he's a Curse Breaker for the Ministry of Magic – and he says that werewolves are some of the best curse-breakers because they're resistant to all kinds of curses. Well, except the curse of the werewolf…" she drifted off.

The boy smiled for the first time as he wrote her answer, and she prepared her own quill.

"Severus Snape. I was born in Cokeworth, and I still live there – in Spinner's End. Potions is my favourite subject as well. Defense Against the Dark Arts is a good subject too, and I guess I'm looking forward to learning about defensive spells."

They talked quietly about potion's class while the remainder of the classroom recorded answers and began being called up to recite their recordings on their partners.

Severus seemed to have read all his text books already, and he was upset that his friend Lily Evans wasn't going to be in the majority of his classes. She was a Gryffindor, and his face seemed to brighten as he mentioned their Potion's class also was paired with Gryffindor, and he was hoping that she would be there.

Introductions took up the majority of class time, only leaving a few moments for expectations and procedures of the classroom to be gone over on a syllabus, before they were released.

"And as for the five points – Slytherin! For exceptional participation."

Grinning at each other, Isolde and Severus parted at the doors as he left for his next class, and Isolde looked hopelessly down at her map to locate the Charms classroom.

"What's your next class?"

Turning around, Isolde looked at Remus Lupin. The boy looked at her timetable curiously over her shoulder. Behind him, the other three boys watched with confusion.

"I can find it, you don't need to help me," Isolde couldn't help the coolness in her voice.

"Are you mad at me?" Remus seemed stunned.

"Cobriana! Are those Gryffindors giving you a hard time?" The boy from her right, Augustus Rookwood, appeared, his eyes narrowed at the tall Gryffindor standing behind her.

"No, no. I just can't find the Charms room," she supplied sheepishly, her eyes shifting between the two boys.

Augustus was a handsome boy, with black hair and glittering green eyes. His figure was slight, and she had overheard him telling his partner, a Gryffindor, that he was looking forward to Quidditch more than any classes and wasn't truly expecting to pay attention in any of them.

He came to a stop alongside her, "Well, you're in luck, madam," he stated cheerfully, wrapping an arm firmly around her shoulders, "I am also in search of Charms. I think we'll go on an adventure."

She glanced back at Remus as he frowned at her retreating form, his brow etched in confusion as Augustus began lamenting over the especially small-lettered map and steered her down a corridor, effectively diminishing the Gryffindor from sight.

* * *

Never having been more grateful for fifteen minutes in her lifetime – for it had taken them the entire time to locate the classroom – Isolde waved at Heather, Emmaline, and Cayleen who had saved her a seat between them. She shifted through the tightly-spaced desks and dropped into it gratefully.

"I think Augustus Rookwood should never be in charge of a map," she sighed mournfully at the tiny professor entered the room.

By the time Charms had ended, Emmaline had effectively gotten directions to Herbology from Heather, and Cayleen had a general idea of where the astronomy tower was located, while Heather began following other Slytherins to Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"I'm glad she's better with directions than I am," muttered Emmaline as they left for the greenhouses.

They met up again at lunch to hunt down the Transfiguration hall together, and waved goodbye to Cayleen as she rushed to Defense – with much better directions from Heather – as they descended to the dungeons for Potions.

By the time they reached the dungeons most of the two-seating tables had been taken. Swiftly, they worked their way to the front, just as a light-brown haired wizard took a seat at the second to last empty table.

"Sorry Isolde," mouthed Heather as she and Emmaline took the empty table to her right.

Sighing, Isolde began unloading her bag for potions without looking at her new partner. They had been told at lunch that the person they sat with the first day became their partner for the rest of the year, and Isolde was disappointed it wouldn't be with one of her roommates.

"Hello again," mumbled her new partner, and she glanced up in surprise.

Remus seemed to be pointedly ignoring her as he read the directions on the chalkboard at the head of the dungeon. He got up to retrieve their ingredients as Isolde watched him with a sinking feeling of apprehension.

She didn't like the idea anymore of spending time with Remus Lupin. Obviously, when it suited him he didn't feel the need to be friendly – and then he was being helpful. Now he appeared to be ignoring her as he deposited ingredients onto the table, but after Augustus Rookwood's interference this morning, she could hardly blame him.

Suddenly, she had a feeling that her favourite subject wasn't going to be quite as pleasant as she had hoped.

Slughorn appeared to cheerfully give them the directions on brewing of their potions – given by the number cards upon their desks and corresponding directions written on the chalkboard – and to properly identify them by the end of the class. As the longest class on the time-table, Isolde settled in for over an hour of quiet, tense conversation.

Her eyes roamed over the ingredients, counting their numbers and glancing at their weights upon the chalkboard as Remus began slicing and crushing, occasionally stirring the bubbling cauldron.

"It's a Calming Draught."

His hazel eyes lifted to her in suspicion. "How do you know that?"

"My uncle owns an apothecary – we sell potions, too. It's a Calming Draught. A really mild one – the ones they use at St. Mungo's or you purchase are a more concentrated version – but I guess it's just so we can finish it on time. It normally takes several hours." Her irritation at him was mounting – he knew that she worked in her uncle's apothecary, he had commented on it while awaiting their luggage to be taken.

Seeming to ignore her, Remus began flipping through his text book of _A Beginner's Guide to Potions and their Properties_, until he located 'Calming Draught – stage one'. His eyes narrowed at the passage as she stirred the cauldron and he sighed in apparent disappointment that she had been correct.

"I told you so," the words had never sounded so delightful.

Having received five points for each of their houses by the end of class – for Slughorn proclaimed to have never seen such a fine potion for a first try – the pair separated hastily, ignoring each other as they stowed away their cauldrons into their cubbies, and hurriedly avoided one another's gazes as they left the dungeons.

"He seems unfriendly," supplied Heather as they separated at the stairs, Emmaline rushing off to locate Defense as they began the search for the Astronomy Tower.

"My uncle and his father are friends – he comes by the apothecary all the time, and only seems to order through us – and I met him again at the platform. He was really nice, but we didn't sit together on the train and he gave me such an odd look on the way to Defense," Isolde couldn't help the disappointment from leeching from her voice and Heather smiled sympathetically.

"It happens. House rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin is really intense from what I've seen – and heard – for that matter. I'm sure he's heard all the nasty stuff about the Cobrianas and is being really daft and matching it up with you,"

She hadn't been privy to the majority of her family's reputation – though she was gathering that it wasn't exactly pleasant – but Remus had known she wasn't in contact with her father's family. Her uncle had always made it clear to anyone who asked that Varick Cobriana had heard the word 'pregnant' slip from her mother's mouth and apparated without a second thought.

At dinner, she couldn't help but watch him from the table as Heather groaned about the dullness of Astronomy to her cousin and Cayleen nursed a tender blister on her heel. Remus laughed with his new friends, his face grinning in a subdued sort of way – but it was there- and occasionally, his eyes lifted to meet hers and hastily turn away.

Isolde wasn't used to being disliked, but she hadn't been used to making friends, either. She supposed it came with the territory of the other, and decided to not let it bother her. At least not too much, and she turned away from the Gryffindor who suddenly casted a fleeting glance her way just in time to catch her laughing as Cayleen began an impersonation of Professor Shardae's toothy smile.

* * *

Eventually, she had gotten to know the castle fairly well, and though it took still too much time to navigate its corridors, she hadn't been tardy to class. She sat with Severus and Augustus in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and laughed at their jokes about Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, and Augustus always walked with her to Charms.

In Potions, she and Remus began a uniform way of working. Remus collected the ingredients, Isolde cut and mortared while he stirred the cauldron, and she declared it finished and turned it in to Professor Slughorn. Minimal conversation was necessary, but it never averted from the task on hand and they received good marks for their work.

At the end of class, Heather soothed with humor about Professor Slughorn's obsession with a few choice students, and by the end of the day, exhaustion left her without any time for thoughts after supper.

"He's been glaring at you the entire class," commented Augustus as they practiced shield charms, effectively preventing the raining of glitter that descended from the classroom ceiling. Weeks had flown by, and Isolde had effectively avoided Remus Lupin everywhere but where they were forced to coincide – their classes.

"I don't care," she answered tersely, face scrunched in concentration. While the spell wasn't difficult, every time Augustus mentioned the young Gryffindor, the shield faltered to shower her with accumulated glitter.

But Remus was glaring, she noticed, as they packed up their books and dusted glitter from their robes. Thinking back recently, she had decided she hadn't said anything offensive and brushed it off as Augustus shook out his shaggy hair and grinned as he sprayed her with sparkle.

The wizard was friendly, and he always waited for Isolde to walk with him to Charms – whether or not it was because he had still not quite figured out his way around the castle, because he did often begin suggesting they take short-cuts that would have lead them to the greenhouses – and he filled the somewhat-long walk down the corridors with chatter about upcoming Quidditch schedules and the pending holiday.

"Are you going home?" he asked as they turned the corner, dodging a few rushing Hufflepuffs.

"Of course! Aren't you?" She looked at him as he dusted a few remainders of glitter from his robe hood.

"Not allowed to stay – strict orders from mum to come home. You should come to our Christmas party. I'm actually allowed to invite people this year," he smiled at her as they entered the classroom.

"I'd like that."

She found she did. Despite what Heather thought of Augustus – that he was an arrogant, self-absorbed prat- he was friendly. While he had stated their first day of class he didn't really intend to learn anything, he was doing extremely well and had helped her during lunch with several essays she had struggled with. He was a good friend.

Cayleen waved her over, her usual seat saved, and began a long recounting of the disastrous events in Astronomy – that someone had charmed the telescopes to give you the impression of a black eye – and Isolde glanced over at her book at Augustus where he sat alone and smiled as he waved.

"Maybe he's not so bad," Emmaline sighed as they walked to the greenhouses. The leaves had been falling from trees, and the crunch beneath their feet filled the otherwise quiet grounds.

"Augustus?"

Emmaline shrugged, "I heard he told off someone who was making fun of another Slytherin – just other first years – but he also eats lunch with Severus, so that he doesn't eat alone. He's kind of a prat, and he's really full of himself, Isolde, but with the Gryffindors saying what they're saying, he'd be a good ally to have around."

Isolde frowned, "What are the Gryffindors saying?"

Coloring, Emmaline stared at her. "I thought you already knew, Izzy, or I really would have told you!"

Feeling her own face heat in embarrassment, "So it's about me?" she asked.

"There's this stupid rumor going around the other houses that you're a parseltongue – I mean, most of the Cobrianas are, after all – but they're saying that you know, with your mum dying really unexpectedly-" Emmaline's voice seemed to fade away as her mouth tightened shut.

"That I killed her?"

Emmaline shook her head fiercely. "It's really immature, and they have no idea what they're talking about. I mean, her obituary was in the Daily Prophet – and anyone could look at it from the library – but, Heather thought maybe Remus and his friends started it, to give you a hard time."

Maeve Saeran had gotten ill suddenly. Within weeks, her healthy body had thinned to a skeletal, emaciated version of herself. She had coughed relentlessly, and had wracked with tremors. They were memories that Isolde tried not to remember – the look of her mother's skin taut over her face, the stain of blood on her teeth as she smiled – but it was difficult not to remember the sudden transformation of a vibrant witch, to the version she had ended as – a skeletal, cold woman still in her bed.

"She had scrofungulus. She was a botanist – the spores were all over the greenhouses she worked in – most of the people she worked with got it, too."

Emmaline nodded hopelessly, her face guilty. "She was just not very healthy to begin with – her doctors they said – she was really stressed out all the time – she was a single mother-" the words began spilling from Isolde's mouth faster than she could stop them.

"I know, I'm really sorry Izzy – I thought – I really thought someone had said something to you."

Citing a headache, Isolde excused herself from herbology and left the class to head to Hospital Wing. Madame Pomphrey frowned at her, clucked her tongue, and urged her off with some Pepper Up Potion to get some rest before lunch.

After her mother had died, Isolde had gotten sick. Months spent in close proximity to a highly-contagious virus, Isolde had found herself in St. Mungo's covered in thick blankets as she shook with tremors that seemed only to make the coughing worse.

The healers there had told her uncle she would always be small for her age – and she carried around potions to free her bronchial tubes when they became constricted, a common side effect of the virus – and Isolde had decided to put the memories of hospital beds and her mother's bloodstained teeth behind her.

She found herself standing in the Great Hall at lunch and looked to where Emmaline watched her with concern – but her feet did not take her Slytherin's table. Instead, they walked her beneath banners of maroon and gold – directly behind the back of Remus Lupin – and when he turned, her hand seemingly of its own accord slapped him hard across the face.

* * *

Author's Note Number 2! Thanks again to everyone following Bloodline of Cobras. I always get excited to see the emails popping up on my phone!

Next chapter will be up sometime in the next few days. I've hit a lag, and though I'm trying to update as quick as I get the chapters edited, I've decided to let myself write ahead so I don't get too long in between updates when writer's block hits.

Let me know how you're liking the story - and to everyone reading in the States - Happy Thanksgiving!


	4. Chapter 4

_Quick Note - Thanks for your continued reading!_  
_A special thank-you to Psycho Mutt, Kira Mackey, ImagineerGirl39, and The-Lady-Isis for your reviews! I really did attempt to make Isolde an uncommon Slytherin at an attempt to make her more personable. I had difficulty while reading the HP series thinking that all Slytherins are truly the same, and had always imagined there were bound to be a few students unlike their peers. I appreciated all the reviews and as always, would love to hear your opinions on Chapter Four!_

* * *

The sound echoed through the Great Hall – heads swiveled on their neck and mouths opened to gape at the trembling first year as she stood with her hand still hanging in the air.

"_How dare you?_"

Remus had the clear mark of a handprint across his cheek, his eye watering from the force of the slap – but both hazel irises were staring at her in dumbfounded shock.

"Are you really daft, or are you just illiterate? My mother died on December 7th, two days before my sixth birthday, of scrofungulus. I spent my birthday in a hospital bed, without my mother and without my father. I found her, did you know that?" He voice seemed to be raising several octaves with each word, her eyes blurring with a feeling she was unaccustomed to – rage.

"No, that wasn't published in her obituary. Which is in the Daily Prophet, I'll just make sure you know. I found my mother and I was five years old, and she was dead. Can you imagine finding your mother dead in her bed with her teeth stained red because she had been coughing blood for days?"

Remus had begun to stand, his eyes slowly turning wide as her voice reached new volumes. Professors had suddenly begun leaving the table and were approaching with reprimanding looks at the students within the Great Hall as they listened, silent.

"No, I bet you can't! Because _your_ mum isn't dead – but that somehow makes it okay for you to tell everyone that I killed her. _That I was five years old and I murdered my mum_-!" Emmaline had reached her elbow now, and was beginning to try and pull her away.

Hot tears slid down her face, but she didn't try to wipe them away. "You are a disgusting person – and for all you and your friends say about how awful Slytherins are – they didn't start rumors about me – they didn't start telling everyone I was a parseltongue when I'm_ not_ – they didn't accuse me of being a murderer – they didn't say they would be my friend and then _ignore _me in front of their new friends-!"

An arm hooked around her chest, and a hand clamped over her mouth as a loud sob cut through her heated words.

"Sh. It's okay, Izzy, let's go back to the Common Room," Augustus Rookwood tightened his grip on the hand he had grasped.

"I didn't kill my mum!" she whispered fiercely as Remus stared, mute before them.

"I know. Let's go."

Before the teachers had time to reach them – and there would be repercussions later – Augustus lead her from the Great Hall, to the Common Room, and sat with her on the plush velvet couches as she cried.

"He's really not worth it." He stated when the sobs diluted to sniffles.

Producing a handkerchief, the wizard watched her without expression as she mopped her face and blew her nose. He smiled as she sat back with a deep breath, tucking her knees to her chest.

"I'm going to get detention," she whispered mournfully, tugging the hem of her skirt.

Shrugging, Augustus leaned back into the arm of the couch and began spinning his wand in his hand, "Probably."

Isolde thought of the stunned expression on Remus's face, at the snickers as her tears began, and felt her face heat in embarrassment. She had thrown a fit in front of the entire school. She had shoved Emmaline away, and she had slapped Remus Lupin in front of the entire roster of Hogwarts.

"The professors knew about the rumor, I'm guessing. I can't say you didn't handle it well – because you did slap another student and cry in front of the entire school – but at least you didn't curse him?"

A laugh escaped her mouth at the cheerful wizard sitting next to her. Her roommates had not followed them to the common room, and she could only assume they were avoiding her. Certainly, after she had shoved Emmaline – the friend who had only warned her about the rumor – she would be avoiding herself, too.

Augustus followed her expressions, "Want me to go back and give him boils? I could, you know – I haven't had a detention this month, and then we could polish trophies together!"

For whatever people were saying about Augustus – and she could now only assume that there were worse things being said about her – he was nice. He had tugged her away from the crowds in the Great Hall, and had carefully guided her back to the common room as she shook with rage and grief, and had sat with her.

Maybe he was just the smallest bit conceited and spent way too much time betting on Quidditch matches than studying – but Emmaline had been right – he was a good friend to have now.

* * *

Professor Horace Slughorn appeared and excused her from classes the remainder of the day. She was given detention – although not one she particularly disliked as it involved counting potions ingredients – every evening for the remainder of the week. He patted her softly on the shoulder before leaving, promising to bring by her detention schedule at dinner.

Escaping to her room, Isolde drew the curtains around her bed. Her face heated as she thought of her outburst in the Great Hall, of how she had shoved Emmaline, and how she had sobbed on Augustus like a child. Anger heated in her stomach at the thought of Remus's dumbfounded expression – as though he hadn't realized she would eventually find out about his rumors.

Feeling guilty, Isolde cleaned up the dormitory, and reorganized the cubbies below the window seats before settling beneath one to reread the latest letter from her uncle. The shops in Diagon Alley were slowly preparing for the return of Hogwarts students – stocking up on wares, turning out holiday decorations – and Isolde thought of the last holiday she had spent at home. She had watched longingly at the crowds of students below, impatient to begin her own time at Hogwarts.

Things had truly been much simpler at home. Eamon mentioned that Maureen would be staying for the holiday – that she had stopped renting her own flat and would be moving in with Eamon permanently, and Isolde felt her heart warm at the idea. Her uncle deserved a nice witch like Maureen, and for as long as she had known the Scottish woman, she had always had a thing for Eamon.

The sun had dipped below the horizon when her dormitory opened, and she held her breath as her roommates quietly entered the dormitory.

"Izzy? Are you still awake?" Her curtain parted to reveal the three.

Words began spilling from her mouth before she could stop them, "I'm really sorry! Please don't be too mad at me – I'd be mad at me, though – but I'm really, sorry-!"

Emmaline hurriedly hugged her, laughing. "Of course you shoved me, you had to shove it in that stupid Gryffindor's face that he had been a total prat. We're sorry we didn't come by, but we arranged for an especially wonderful surprise for Remus in Potions, and made sure we got your assignments."

Isolde's eyes burned as she stared at the parchment in front of her. She had not expected them to go to each of her professors to request her school work, and she certainly hadn't expected them to be exacting revenge on Remus. If anything, she had expected complete outrage.

"And we brought you some supper."

The four stayed up late in to the night, looking forward to the weekend ahead, and recounted the prank they had pulled on Remus. Heather had told Lily Evans that her roommate had been in the Hospital Wing, and she had missed class. Today, a potion was being brewed and partners were essential.

"So he had to partner with Snape!" cackled Cayleen, "You should've seen the look on Snape's face the entire class. He looked like he was trying to melt Lupin's face off."

Isolde grinned as Emmaline nudged her with her shoulder, a smile on her face. "Not even the best part, I heard him tell Remus that he purposefully spilled the draught on Lupin's trousers!"

Severus Snape always took extra time with Isolde on the spells she struggled with. He wasn't exactly friendly, but the relentless teasing at the hands of Remus and his three friends – who had begun calling themselves the Marauders – had turned him into a more sour version of himself. It surprised her that he would take her side, and even moreso that he would risk a few extra points in Potions just to spite Remus.

It was late when the four retired to their four-posters, and quiet snoring from Cayleen's bed signaled that they day had been long for all of them, but Isolde rolled over in the night and stared outside the window alongside her bed.

"You know, Isolde, I'm really sorry."

Emmaline's whisper carried quietly across the dormitory, and Isolde shifted beneath her sheets.

"I didn't know – about your mum – and I just wanted you to know, well, that I'm really sorry."

Isolde's eyes burned as she buried her face into her pillows. She had spent the majority of her childhood trying to banish the thoughts that her uncle had told her only tainted the cheerful memories of her mother.

However, the memory of that morning when she had woken and dizzily padded into the kitchen – for the virus had just begun its destructive path through her – and found it empty, she had somehow known. Moments before – after she had opened the bedroom door and quietly called for her, and had crossed the woven rug to her mother's bedside – she had known what she would find.

Her mother hadn't looked peaceful – her face was torn with the sickness, her face peeling and cracked from the deadly fever. A long line of blood had dripped from her mouth onto the pillow, and her eyes – turned milky with exposure – had stared endlessly. Despite every happy memory of her mother, in every image her eyes were milky, as though reminding Isolde that eventually, everything ends.

A nagging guilt entered her mind. She had been too late to alert anyone to her mother – and far too young to understand – and she most definitely had not been the cause of her death, but she had lied to Remus Lupin in the middle of the Great Hall.

Just like every Cobriana before her, she was a parseltongue.

Eamon had caught her whispering to the garden snake in their vegetable patch behind the apothecary. The look of horror on his face as he screamed at her to get away from the serpent had told her enough that this talent she thought so special was one that would alienate her.

He had forbidden her to ever whisper the hissing words again, and she had never again spoken to a snake about the warm smell of basil in the summer sun, but she was a parseltongue. If anything had taught her a lesson in the last twenty four hours, it was that standing out in uncommon ways within the walls of Hogwarts did not mean you would do great things – but that you would be a great outcast.

* * *

When she returned to Potions, Professor Slughorn had altered the seating arrangement. Remus Lupin now sat with James Potter, who had been replaced as Sirius Black's partner with Peter Pettigrew. She found herself sitting next to Darryl Travers, Cayleen's twin brother.

He was an intelligent boy, and easily dispatched ingredients with the same efficiency as Remus Lupin, but his interest in conversation was minimal and Isolde decided by the end of the period that she would not be enjoying Potions at all this year.

After dinner, she reported to Professor Slughorn for detention and carefully counted stocks of potion ingredients, recording each phial and jar with the corresponding number and necessary amount for replenishment. It was not an unpleasant detention, and Slughorn was friendly – he talked about rare ingredients and where one could find them for extraordinary prices.

"Your uncle owns one of the best-stocked apothecaries in London, I hear. I can't say that I've personally searched his wares, but I've heard from all of my former students – now working high in the Ministry of Magic or at St. Mungo's as professionals – that he tends to stock the most unusual botanicals and can get his hands on some of the rarer ingredients," Slughorn commented.

Isolde smiled. Her uncle had always prided himself on having the most diverslely stocked apothecary in London. His trips to meet with vendors were carefully planned, and he was always able to come up with the especially strange requests from his customers.

"I don't suppose he has unicorn hair – I almost always have to special order it now – and the vendor I receive it from almost never cleans them."

Nodding, Isolde tucked away a jar of bat wings, "We carry it in shop. In a safe – it's gotten so expensive – but he always has a whole tail in stock."

"Wonderful! I know where I'll be placing my orders from now on!"

Albeit Slughorn released her early, it was late when she walked the corridors back to her common room. Her feet trudged through the quiet, and she hummed quietly to herself as she counted each turn down to the Slytherin dungeons.

The common room appeared empty as she descended the stair, looking longingly at the crackling fireplace – although their dormitory had a stove, silk sheets did little to retain heat – and sighed as she released her hair from its ponytail.

"A bit late, isn't it?"

Severus Snape sat on the floor before the fireplace, his quill leaking ink onto a pair of striped pajamas. Before him, his potions book lay open before the light of the coals, and she spotted neat notes in every margin.

"Detention with Slughorn," she mumbled as she made her way to the dormitory stair.

"You know, they're a bunch of prats – James and them."

Isolde paused by the stair, turning to watch Severus as he carefully blew the ink dry. "Nobody believed a word of what they were saying – that you had murdered your mother – at least not in Slytherin. I don't know what people are telling you, but you have friends here."

"Does that include you, Severus?"

She didn't think he would reply as she began the ascent to her dorm, but as her feet clicked against the steps, she heard his voice interrupt the darkness.

"It does."

* * *

"You know, I really don't understand what the professors expect assigning all of this homework before the holiday," Heather grumbled as she began packing her trunk. In the morning, they would be leaving the castle grounds for Hogsmeade station, to take the train back home for Christmas.

Emmaline glanced up from her essay, quill in mouth as she raised an eyebrow, "Not everyone spends the holiday catching up on back issues of Witch Weekly and looking at shoes in Twilfitt and Tattings." She remarked dryly.

Emmaline and her brother Darryl were remaining at Hogwarts for the holiday. Her mother and father had planned a trip to Greece, and had written their children to remain at school – and to not worry, that presents and souvenirs would arrive by the dozens.

"I'm just looking forward to sleeping in my own bed," Isolde commented as she tucked Rupert safely among a pair of robes for the trip home.

"And Octavia Rookwood's Christmas party!"

Augustus had kept his word on inviting Isolde to his mother's Christmas party. Their invitations had arrived by owl, carefully folded into puffed silhouettes of bells which jingled as they had been flown across the Great Hall. Despite Heather's impressions of the boy – which were that he was an arrogant know-it-all – she had squealed with delight.

Octavia Rookwood's party was an event that seemingly only the very best of the wizarding world attended. Heather had longingly described fountains of butterbeer and that real reindeer walked through the Rookwood's estate as guests waltzed within an extraordinary ball room to a live orchestra.

Isolde wasn't sure there would be any remaining funds for a dress. The attire listed on the emerald and scarlet paper had been evening formal – but Isolde had never had a dress more formal than a summer gymslip, and she chewed her nail at the idea of not being able to go.

Even more, she didn't know any other witches or wizards whom were attending other than her roommates and the hostess's son, and anxiety filled her as she lay in bed awaiting the morning.

* * *

"You've grown," commented Eamon Saeran as he carried her trunk to his bedroom.

Seamus had arrived to take her home from the Express, citing new improvements being done at the apothecary – and Isolde had smiled at the washed building, and new shining signs above its doors. Her uncle must be doing well to have installed window boxes which grew butterfly bushes, and a new chalkboard listing holiday specials on ingredients for Pepper-Up Potion and Calming Draught – 'For Your Most Stressful Family Moments' – and looking within, seeing even more improvements.

"An inch or two," supplied Isolde sheepishly as her uncle ruffled her hair.

Eamon watched her carefully as she unpacked her trunk, and Maureen hummed in the kitchen as she fixed supper. He seemed younger if possible, the lines on his face didn't seem so pronounced, and there was a smile etched to the corners of his mouth which had for so long turned down.

"Maureen was wondering if you wanted to have a friend over this week."

Isolde paused as she hung up her school robes and glanced over at her smiling uncle. She adjusted the hanging silver and green scarf and tucked her hands into her trousers.

"Actually, I was invited to Octavia Rookwood's Christmas party," she began slowly, "Heather Devaire's parents offered to take me with them and bring me home."

A frown covered her uncle's face. "Octavia Rookwood?"

"Yes – her son, Augustus – well he's in my House – and we're friends – he invited me along-.." babbled Isolde as she began smoothing invisible wrinkles on her sleeves.

Eamon suggested they discuss it later, and Isolde provided a letter that Heather's mother, Reagan Devaire, had written expressing her pleasure at escorting Isolde to Octavia's party.

Supper was strangely quiet. Where there had been no awkward pauses in conversation ever in their time together, Isolde found herself at a loss as to what to say. Surely, she had looked forward to coming home just as much as any of her friends, but now that she was home she felt out of place in the flat.

The threadbare couches that had surrounded their fireplace had been reupholstered – Maureen's talent with a sewing machine was truly spectacular – and there was a new scent in the air that disturbed the crackling incense and wafting fumes of potions brewing in the apothecary below.

Photographs of her uncle and the redheaded witch had appeared on the fireplace mantle, smiling at small strings concert in the square, holding wet paintbrushes as they splattered each other with laughter. The framed photograph of her mother – and herself as a child – had been removed from the mantle, to sit on an end-table by the couch.

"I received a letter, from your headmaster, about an incident at school?"

Isolde felt her face color as Maureen turned her eyes to the young witch, her eyebrows raised. Obviously, she had been privy to the letter – Isolde doubted her uncle had been less than extremely vocal about the matter – but she paused as she picked her fork through her plate.

"You _slapped_ Remus Lupin? Isolde, I raised you to know that violence isn't how you express yourself. I'm disappointed that you felt as though it was necessary to _hit_ another person-!"

She felt the beginnings of anger bubbling in her stomach, "He started a rumor about me!"

Eamon halted, his brow furrowing as he watched his niece. His hands, which had been raised in his heated words dropped to the table-top.

"He and his stupid friends told everyone that I murdered my mum because I'm a parseltongue."

Color drained from Maureen's face and Eamon hastily cast a glance her way. Despite her uncle's apparent openness with the witch, this was one object of his life that he had apparently not shared.

"Everyone was whispering about me! All the time! I just – I just wanted him to stop, and he and his friends were telling everyone._ Everyone_."

Her uncle rubbed his nose as Maureen watched him, "What did you say to him?"

"I told him that she died from scrofungulus – that I was only five – and that I wasn't a parseltongue and he should stop lying!"

Relief colored Eamon's face as he let out a long breath.

"Don't worry, uncle, I didn't tell them all that your niece is a freak."

Slamming her napkin to the table, Isolde retreated hastily to her bedroom. Her chest heaved as her eyes burned, and she paced the wooden floor. She remembered the day in the garden – his look of horror as she whispered to the garden snake, his body curling through her fingers – and his immediate banning of the words she had spoken. It had proven to him that she was not simply Maeve Saeran's daughter - but also Varick Cobriana's – and he had apparently taken great strides to hide it.

"You never mentioned this, Eamon. Don't you remember the most basic of rules from our own schooling? That you must never smother magic – any kind – or it will only provide disaster-!"

Maureen's voice carried down the hall of their flat, its octaves raising as an argument broke between the new couple.

"Do you know what they will say about her – about her being a parseltongue – once they realize? They'll say she's an abomination – Death Eaters will be coming here to grab her in the middle of the night – parents will be writing letters to Dumbledore by the dozens demanding her expulsion-!"

"And you thought that it was best that she be alienated by her own blood first? I'm ashamed of you! She isn't any more evil than a teacup, and it is more than common knowledge that every Cobriana is born a parseltongue – Merlin's beard, even the Squibs are - and you _what_? You didn't like that she wasn't all of Maeve?"

"It's more complicated Maureen – you don't understand!"

She could hear dishes being unceremoniously clattered into the sink, "No, I don't. I don't understand why you would want to shun her – tell her that it's abnormal – when being a parseltongue is something that she was born with. She didn't get to decide that anymore than she chose to have her mother die or be abandoned by her father." Maureen let out a deep sigh, "They'll eventually know."

Isolde's breath was leaving her mouth in short breaths. Her eyes leaked tears and she stuffed her fist into her mouth to quiet herself.

"Think how upsetting it is for a young girl who has constantly had life throw bludgers at her to come home and find everything different? We were insensitive, Eamon, to change her home while she was away at school. We're both at fault here."

"Well, there is no way bloody hell she's going to Octavia Rookwood's party-!"

She had never outwardly disobeyed her uncle – and she had never raised her voice at him for anything other than a childhood temper tantrum, which had been few and far between. Isolde listened to the front door slam shut and felt her breath leave her mouth in a sob.

Clearly, things were changing while she was at Hogwarts. Not just within the castle and her own life, but here as well. Maureen had attempted to make her home cheerful, and she had felt resentment boiling in her stomach at the sight of freshly waxed floors and the new, unchipped teapot.

It was morning when Maureen appeared in the doorway cradling a hot mug of tea, placing it on Isolde's bedside table as the younger witch attempted to escape sleep.

"Well, your uncle has decided you won't go to Octavia Rookwood's party," Began Maureen softly as she finger-combed Isolde's hair, "But I did convince him to let your schoolmates over for a day of Christmas shopping in the alley. I thought you'd might like to help me paint the kitchen today, and we'll send some owls for your friends?"

As owls left with letters to Emmaline, Heather, and Augustus, Isolde carefully began lining the counter tops with layers of old Prophet articles. Maureen cracked open cans of pale green paint, and smiled up at Isolde as she stared down at an article stained with tea.

_Varick Cobriana, esteemed attorney at the Ministry of Magic, wins trial freeing assumed Death Eater Orion Black_.

Her eyes stopped on a new box of parchment sitting upon the kitchen table. How many letters had she started to the wizard? She couldn't count. Perhaps – since everything was changing anyway – it was long overdo for another change to alter her life.

When Maureen left to bring lunch down to her uncle, Isolde escaped to her bedroom, fresh parchment in hand. Her quill wrote words seemingly of its own free will, and before she had a moment to second-guess her decision, an owl was flying through the window, an envelope clutched in its claws.

* * *

_Author's Note - Will have the next chapter up on Friday!_


	5. Chapter 5

A quick thank you to Arctic Winters for following BoC! As always, thank you for the reviews of Chapter Four! Enjoy!

* * *

Varick Cobriana was a devilishly handsome wizard. His secretary smiled sweetly as she deposited his mail on his desk, and her hips swayed as she waltzed from his office. A grin spread across his mouth, showing pearly teeth, and he raked a hand through obsidian hair.

Tinsel, the house-elf he had relieved from its duties at his family's estate to wait upon him in his office – carefully poured tea and arranged scones for his next appointment as he sorted through the envelopes addressed to himself before stopping suddenly.

His bronze eyes widened as he took in the sloping, elegant script. He barked an order at Tinsel to remove herself from his office, and stared at the envelope in his hands as his heart hammered.

Maeve Saeran had been a pretty witch. He had enjoyed his time with her, loving her lack of expectations of him, her understanding at the rage for his father. She had not been Cobriana material, and when she had sat down to tell him of his future child, he had felt horror grip his gut. If there were anything he wished for a child of his, it would be that it were not his child.

_Mr. Varick Sigfried Cobriana _

The letter's return address was simple, it leapt out from the parchment as his finger sliced through the envelope's seal, and it made his hands tremble as he unfolded the crisp letter within.

_Your Daughter_

* * *

Christmas morning arrived before Isolde had even inspected the new changes to Diagon Alley's holiday decorations. Maureen roused her early from bed, and guided her to a tree tinseled in silver and gold. She watched as gifts were distributed and held her breath in the unusual quiet that had infested the holiday.

Since her outburst, Eamon had remained cool. Their conversations were brief, and despite Maureen's attempts at warming the atmosphere, only the sounds of tearing paper and an occasional muted thanks filled the air.

Isolde found herself looking forward to going back to Hogwarts. Her bed was uncomfortable when it had not been before, and the sound of her uncle's snoring in the hallway – which had often lulled her to sleep – suddenly sounded as loud as thunder. She hated the color Maureen had painted the sitting room, and the sharp coldness that despite the crackling fireplace and wood stoves still lingered in the flat.

Supper had been equally quiet and before she had picked through the remainder of her meal, she had feigned a headache and retreated to her bedroom. Isolde rolled on the lumpy mattress, and carefully pulled out the letter Heather had written to describe Octavia Rookwood's Christmas party in great, painstaking detail. Her eyes closed as the words of 'string quartet' filled her mind and heard soft violins, her mouth watered as she pictured fountains of butterbeer, and her heart ached at details of Emmaline's pearl-cuffed dress.

These things had never felt so important, and while her roommates had been drinking and dancing the night away, Isolde had locked herself in her bedroom while Maureen and Eamon played games of wizard's chest with quiet conversation.

Next year, she told herself furiously, she would stay at school with Cayleen.

Pecking alerted her eyes to adjust in the darkness of the room and a movement outside the window alerted her to rise from bed. Her feet quietly padded across the room to open the fire escape and her head poked out into the sky which dropped fat snowflakes on her hair.

A familiar owl sat upon the iron drop-down ladder, its golden eyes narrowed in obvious displeasure of being out on a frigid, snowing night. It deposited a velvet draw-string bag and lunged forward to sink its beak in her finger before hastily taking off in the night.

Sucking on the bleeding bite, Isolde scooped up the bag and closed the window. Her heart hammered – for the biting owl was the same raptor that arrived every first of the month. It was the owl that delivered her father's money.

Bolting the lock on her bedroom door before hurrying back beneath the covers, she spilled the contents of the bag onto her sheets. A neatly folded piece of parchment with a waxed seal tumbled between her feet, while a smaller silken bag dropped with a soft jingle alongside it.

Hastily, her fingers clutched the letter as her pulse roared in her ears. She could hardly remember the quick words she had written to Varick Cobriana, but her eyes stared at the hooded cobra crest pressed upon the wax. Carefully breaking the bronze seal, her eyes took in the careful slanted handwriting.

_Dearest Isolde,_

_ It was to my surprise that I found this in Diagon Alley. Your mother wore it everywhere, and I am happy to return it to her daughter. Wear it to remind you of her best moments._

_Happy Christmas, little cobra,_

_Your Father, Varick S. Cobriana_

Her mouth felt dry as she loosened the silk bag's strings and upturned it to her hand. A silver and bronze bracelet dropped into her palm. Tiny charms glinted in the starlight shining through her windows – clovers, tiny dragons, a teardrop pendant with IASC engraved upon its surface.

Maeve Saeran had loved her charm bracelet. In every memory Isolde had of her mother – she was wearing the trinket. It jingled as she tickled her daughter, it caught the light as she sat by the fireplace, it hung still in her death. In months of short money, Eamon had been forced to sell her mother's only piece of jewelry, and Isolde had gone back every day to stare at it in its velvet box within the shop until one day, it had disappeared.

Eyes burning, Isolde closed her hand around the bracelet. She carefully folded her father's letter and tucked it carefully beneath her mattress, stowing the bags within her trunk. As she lay awake in the darkness, her fingers smoothed over each charm, recounting dim memories of her mother's tale of each.

She hadn't known what to expect in the letter her father had replied. Perhaps she had secretly been longing for him to simply arrive at the door of their flat to exclaim that the entirety of her childhood had been a misunderstanding – of course he loved her, of course he had loved her mother – but she felt no disappointment.

Varick Cobriana had cared about her mother – he obviously cared enough to recognize her charm bracelet and when the time came, return it to Isolde – and by that act alone, Isolde felt that he cared about her, as well. Perhaps his letter had not been filled with admissions of guilt and self-hatred as his abandonment of her mother and his child, but he had written back.

When morning came for Maureen to take Isolde back to the Hogwarts Express, her hand remained in her pocket until she boarded the train to search for Heather and Emmaline. Her fingers hooked themselves within the bracelet carefully hidden from her uncle, and felt it slide over her hand to solidly tighten around her wrist.

_Wear it to remind you of her best moments. _

* * *

"I have never been more grateful for this bed," exclaimed Isolde as she collapsed within its sheets.

Trunks had been unpacked yet again, Christmas gifts finally exchanged between the four. In addition to a set of personalized stationary in silver and green from Emmaline, an emerald cloak trimmed in bronze – to match her eyes, Heather had declared – and a set of knitted slippers from Cayleen with snaking serpent tongues, there were gifts from Augustus Rookwood – and oddly – an bronze necklace with a cobra pendant with sparkling green gemmed eyes.

Heather snorted as she climbed into her own four-poster, "You say that now, but classes begin in two days and I don't know about any of you, but I barely touched a single assignment."

Avoiding both Maureen and her uncle had given her ample time to not only finish every assigned essay and assignment, but to go over and revise each. Promising to help Heather finish her own homework in the morning, Isolde collapsed onto her pillows.

"I wrote to my father," she stated suddenly.

Immediate chaos ensued. Suddenly, Emmaline was crawling into her bed, and Heather had let out a great shriek, grabbing her pillows to pile alongside her cousin. Cayleen hovered anxiously in the window seat.

"Well?" they demanded.

Isolde described the short letter, taking it out from her rucksack and showed them the bracelet that had been her mother's, but had been sold, and then retrieved by Varick Cobriana.

"He was at Octavia's party. My mother pointed him out to me. He's very handsome," supplied Emmaline as she inspected a jade clover charm.

Heather nodded, "He's an attorney with the Ministry of Magic – all over the Daily Prophet this week – he's been defending a lot of purebloods being accused of being involved with all those muggleborn disappearances," the blonde witch smiled, "There hasn't been any evidence to back up the claims, anyway."

Cayleen shifted on the window seat, appearing thoughtful, "Are you going to write him again?"

Unsure of her own answer, Isolde remained quiet as Emmaline urged her to write another letter – if not just to thank her father for the return of the charm bracelet. As her roommates whispered of cheery scenes of father and daughter reuniting, Isolde burrowed under her sheets, her thoughts a jumbled mess of nervousness and excitement.

"It couldn't hurt to just write a thank-you note, Iz. At least, that's what I would do," assented Heather.

Nodding, Isolde left her bed to unroll parchment at her desk. The words found themselves on the page seemingly of their own accord, and as Isolde's owl leapt through the window into darkness, a glint of relief filled her too-full mind.

* * *

Augustus waved obnoxiously as she exited the Great Hall, and looped his arm around her shoulders to walk with her to Defense. He didn't mention her absence from his mother's party, but expressed his enthusiasm for the socks she had knitted for him with Maureen.

Severus was sporting the scarf she had made for his Christmas gift, and he made a fleeting attempt at a wave before hurriedly turning his attention back to the window as James Potter hurled crumpled parchment at the back of his head.

"You know, I really wish they would leave you alone," muttered Isolde as she took her seat between the two Slytherins.

Shrugging, Severus whispered, "It really doesn't bother me."

She could tell that it did, but relented as Professor Shardae swept into the room with greetings back from the holiday, and quickly began to move onto their lesson.

Partnered with Severus to distinguish veelas, they worked quietly together as more parchment bounced off the back of the Slytherin boy's head. As class continued, the boy's shoulders grew more tense, his mouth pursed in a thin line as he gritted out descriptions of the beautiful creatures.

"Will you sod off?" hissed Isolde suddenly, whipping around to narrow her eyes at James Potter.

"What? Is ickle Severus not a fan of my aim? I haven't missed him once," snickered James as Sirius Black slapped him a high-five.

"Leave it," growled Severus as he gripped her shoulder in attempt to turn her around.

Fire ignited in her, Isolde shook off his grip. "Severus has done nothing to you – you're just a vain little boy with jealousy issues. Perhaps if you spent less time 'improving your aim' on the back of his head, and instead improved the letter of your grade, you wouldn't find yourself searching for negative attention-!" her voice whispered fiercely, "You are a bully, James Potter."

Cackling with laughter, James ignored her outburst, but the balls of parchment ricocheted off of Severus's head ceased for the remainder of the period.

Her partner threw her a dithering look as they turned in their parchment to Professor Shardae, and he walked with her outside of the classroom, "I don't need you to stick up for me," he stated suddenly before disappearing down the corridor.

"Clearly someone had to. You should've seen the way they treated him over the holiday," muttered Augustus as they began their trek to Charms. "Tried to debag him in the corridor, hexed his nose to grow."

Isolde turned to watch James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus walking behind them. James had narrowed his eyes at her, but Remus had begun inspecting the ceiling as they walked, his face flushed.

"They spend plenty of time telling everyone who can hear that Slytherins are the real works of the school, but I don't see any of us cursing people's body parts to grow." She grumbled.

"No, we just assault them in front of the Great Hall," laughed Augustus as her face colored.

"Too soon?"

"Yes, Augustus!"

His laughter followed her as she purposefully increased her strides to walk without him, her face flaming as she remembered the day she had stood before the school and hit Remus Lupin.

* * *

The school year was passing too quickly, Isolde decided, as the weather warmed outside of the castle walls and summer began encroaching. Exam schedules had been delivered, and Isolde spent the majority of the time in the library with her roommates – eyes peeled for checked-out books' returns – and writing essays that caused her hands to cramp.

"Over summer, you should come spend a week with us," Heather proclaimed, eyes wide with excitement suddenly as she hugged a book to her chest.

Emmaline began nodding – the two often spent their time together outside of Hogwarts – and carefully began loading her rucksack with ink wells. "The same week I go," she agreed.

Isolde wasn't certain that Eamon would allow her to go anywhere after her cool demeanor during the holiday. She had worked endless hours to ensure excellent marks on her upcoming exams, and had begged for extra credit from each professor. Even if she miraculously flunked each upcoming test, she would still walk away with marks that were enviable.

"I'd like that," she agreed as they began the walk back to the common room, "But I'm not sure my uncle will allow it. I haven't written back to any of his letters since the holiday, and I can't imagine that he's too happy with me."

The only letters she had replied to were one from Maureen, and those that her father had written.

Varick Cobriana wasn't a wizard of many words, and his letters were often short and generally associated with a small gift. There had been tea from Arabia, a carving of a serpent from Egypt, and a set of bronze coloured cobra earrings to match her anonymously gifted Christmas necklace. He had asked her favourite color in one letter, and requested a photograph of her in another.

Emmaline, who was the only witch she knew who owned a camera, had snapped the shot for her father, and they had spent hours going over the returned prints before selecting a simple one of Isolde at the Quidditch pitch during a Slytherin and Hufflepuff match, her arm wrapped around Heather's shoulders as they cheered on the silver and emerald robed team.

"I'll ask my mother to write him! We can come pick you up – it's on the way – and take you back right before school starts. You'll have enough time to do your school shopping and spend time with them, and he won't have to worry about whose taking you!"

Bespectacled eyes wide in excitement, Isolde couldn't refuse her friend and nodded. She hoped that Eamon would be willing to allow her some time at Heather's home, and Cayleen had also gotten permission to spend a week or so at the Devaire household. It would be nice to spend the summer – which she was certain she would only begin to get homesick for Hogwarts – with her friends.

They stopped in a corridor as a crowd had formed. It blocked easy access to the staircase descending to the Slytherin common room, and Heather craned her neck to see over the mass of students gathered.

"What's going on?" whispered Heather to a brown-haired boy in Slytherin robes. He shrugged and began pushing along to reach the staircase to obvious quiet.

Isolde, too short for any view above the taller students, ducked her head to look below. Her eyes followed a pair of mary janes, the common shoe wear by all female students, and a crumpled figure on the ground behind the polished shoes with daisy buttons.

"It's Cayleen!" she hissed to Emmaline, whose eyes widened. The girl had left their study session in search of snacks, and when she hadn't returned, they had pegged it to be simple exhaustion. It was late, and though the library now remained open later to accommodate studying students, Isolde couldn't honestly say she hadn't thought of curling beneath a table within the library to take a nap.

Her bony shoulder found soft surfaces that yelped and backed away from the determined curly-haired witch as she plowed the way through for Heather and Emmaline – but she wasn't prepared for the scene before her.

Severus sat on the floor, clutching a gory mess of his nose that oozed blood through his fingers. Cayleen stood in front of him, trembling in either anger or fear, as James Potter grinned at her, twirling his wand in his hands – before her daisy-buttoned shoes, a hooded cobra danced.

No professors had been alerted of the scene, and none came rushing through the corridor to rescue the redhead or the bleeding boy, and Isolde's heart pounded as she watched the serpent fill its hood and open its mouth to reveal long, dripping fangs.

King cobras were some of the most venomous creatures – even in the wizarding world – and even the older students hadn't whipped out wands to dispense of the creature. Its long body weaved in the air, and though James Potter appeared confident as he looked at the serpent, his upper lip sported sweat.

If you missed in your desire to kill the snake, an instantaneous bite would be delivered.

"Having a Cobriana defend you in class, Snivellus? Then having one of her friends come rushing to your rescue in the corridor – are you just incapable of growing a backbone, or are you just too wiling to have girls fight your battles for you?"

Cayleen trembled – and Isolde recognized the tremors as terror – the girl's eyes were wide as the snake hissed. Behind James, Sirius Black stood with an equally smug expression, and hatred blossomed in Isolde's chest.

"Leave them alone!" she suddenly yelled, breaking through between two students, her eyes narrowed.

"Time to prove it, Cobriana, are you really not a parseltongue?"

Her blood felt cold beneath the bubbling of rage. Severus glared at her between his blood-streaked fingers and turned his face away.

"You're going to attack my friends with a poisonous snake? I'm sure Professor Dumbledore won't be pleased-!" she began heatedly, her wand already in hand.

She wasn't even sure where he had learned the spell. It was known that Harold Potter was an auror, and Isolde could guess that perhaps James had heard the spell from him, or unearthed it in some higher-level textbooks within the library, but the game seemed too cruel for sport.

"Please, it's not that venomous –" James began heatedly, "Madame Pomphrey is perfectly capable of righting anyone bitten," but his voice faltered as eyes stared at him in obvious shock at his stupidity.

"Of course it's venomous, you prat!" snarled Cayleen, her wand shaking within her fingers.

Knowledge that Eamon had never wanted her to whisper to serpents made Isolde's skin burn as she reached forward, her eyes suddenly focusing on the serpent. It turned black eyes to her in sudden interest, its mouth dripping with deadly venom.

Its hissing was filled with terror. The serpent had no real desire to bite, it simply did not understand why it was suddenly in a corridor filled with ugly creatures that made far too much noise, that filled the room with smells that its tongue could not distinguish between.

Carefully, she outstretched her hand to the snake as James began to smugly smile at her. She hoped the serpent would know she could hear its words within her own level gaze – that she would not have to speak to the cobra to let it understand – but it opened its mouth wider, its hood began to spread.

She felt the bite before any words could leave her mouth, the pain instantaneous and hot. It traveled from her bleeding fingers up to her palm, spreading a liquid fire that burned and throbbed.

"_What is the meaning of this_?"

Evidentially, a professor had been dispatched, and stared at the hooded snake, its fangs still embedded in her index and middle fingers, its eyes terrified in the flickering lamp-light.

Her hand wrapped around the cobra's hood as blinding pain shot to her elbow, and felt its skin begin to crumble beneath her hand, an ashy wake that left nothing but two small punctures that dripped a steady stream of blood.

"_Have you lost your minds?!_" Professor McGonagall's voice carried as Isolde felt a hand begin squeezing her wrist in a vain attempt to stop the spread of molten pain that had already begun pooling in her elbow.

The hand did not move, "Professor, it bit Isolde!" screamed Heather, but her voice sounded far away. A drunken feeling had filled the young Cobriana, her head began to ache. She desperately wanted to sit down, to have her arm unhooked from her body in a vain wish to end the pain.

She did not feel Professor McGonagall's levitating charm, but rather the firm pressure digging into her wrist as her eyes widened but saw only red – a blinding color that was nothing but pain.

* * *

Thanks you for reading! I'd really like your opinions on how the story is going. Sorry for the wait!


	6. Chapter 6

_Thank you to Emerald Isis, Candyluver2121, RayeRobins, Juliet Holmes, Rocha Tempest, and MickyMucMuffinx3 for following BoC! Always a fantastic feeling to see my email pop up with a new person favorite-ing this fic. Enjoy Chapter Six!_

* * *

Isolde was only vaguely aware of those that moved around her cot. She heard arguing but the voices sounded simply of garbled speech. There was nothing but the pain – which had slithered up from her arm and begun radiating like rays from a sun in her fingers.

She hoped Madame Pomphrey would cut them off – that she would burn them from Isolde's hand – anything to stop the agony. Beneath the panic ensuing within the Hospital Wing, she could hear an animal's tortured screams that sounded too close to human for her comfort. A pinch cooled the fire in her arm, and her thoughts focused on nothing more than the feeling of flames licking her insides.

There was nothing in her drugged sleep but fire. It melted her fingers from her hands, scorched her skin from her bones and it hissed – the eerie sound that a cobra makes just before it bites.

"_Don't touch it," Maeve Saeran whispered to her child, her fingers wrapped around Isolde's five-year-old elbows. "They'll bite." _

_ Her younger child-version of herself had simply giggled with delight at the serpent lurking within the tops of carrots lifted its head to stare at the child reaching for its shiny form, glittered with water from Isolde's watering can. _

"Pretty snake_," she had told the adder, and it had coiled at her voice, its eyes suspicious._

"Ugly creature_," it had replied, "_Speaking to me_?"_

_ Isolde had nodded, outstretching her hands as Maeve had attempted to pull her away, but her grip was loose, her eyes wide at the words leaving her daughter's mouth._

"Be my friend_?" _

_ Maeve had allowed the adder home within her vegetable patch, after requesting that Isolde ask it never to bite them if Maeve would leave rodents outside for it to feast on. Isolde had sat in the garden, the serpent coiled on her lap as she counted its zig-zagging scales, preening under endless compliments of how pretty the creature was, of how shiny. _

_ Seamus had killed the adder on a visit, and Isolde had sobbed as her mother lifted it to a shoe box to be buried in the garden. Her uncle hadn't known she could whisper to the snake, and Maeve had never told him. To Seamus, it was just a deadly addition beneath the tomatoes – a beast to be destroyed._

Isolde opened her eyes to the sterile light in the Hospital Wing. She had forgotten the adder that had slept beneath their porch steps, and its conversations about the delightful smell of her mother's jasmine bushes, the soft feel of dirt beneath its belly.

Her eyelids felt heavy, her joints screamed as she shifted within her cot. Curtains had been drawn around the bed, and she dropped her gaze to stare in dumb shock at her arm.

Pale, creamy skin had been replaced with streaking lines of black and purple – the limb swollen, her fingers were a deep shade of eggplant – and despite her attempts to move the digits, they remained still.

Panic gripped her belly as she attempted to sit upright, her eyes wide at the transformation of her hand. A sudden, delirious thought entered her mind that her studying had clearly been for nothing – not only would she never be able to hold her wand again, but gripping a quill was certainly out of the question as well.

"Miss Cobriana," Professor Dumbledore appeared between the curtains, smiling softly at her.

"My hand! It won't move – it doesn't work anymore – is she going to have to cut it off?"

The words left Isolde's mouth as she thought of her last fleeting wishes – that Madame Pomphrey remove her fingers – and hoped to Merlin that she hadn't wished it aloud and the healer had decided to comply.

"No, Miss Cobriana – the paralysis is temporary, albeit inconvenient."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he stared at the young witch, his hands folded neatly upon his lap. "I cannot say the outcome would have been better, if Remus Lupin had not come to tourniquet your wrist from the venom. Perhaps we would be looking at a very different outcome if he had not."

Her eyes narrowed at the Headmaster, "Remus Lupin doesn't like me, Headmaster, and the only reason he probably even tried to help me is so James wouldn't have been expelled."

Shaking his head, the headmaster sighed, "Mr. Potter has received due punishment for his reckless behavior. He was truthful in his admission of little knowledge of the spell he cast and I do not believe he understood the danger in his action. However, he will be spending the remainder of the term in detention, and his House has lost one hundred points for the incident."

Gryffindor had been exactly thirty points ahead of Slytherin in the battle for the House Cup, with the headmaster's words, that left them seventy points behind. The Gryffindor common room would not be a pleasant place for James Potter, and she felt better with the realization.

"It is my understanding that you are a parseltongue, Miss Cobriana."

Isolde felt her blood chill as she slowly turned her face up to Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling ever-still as he inspected the young first year.

"I admit, I am surprised you did not take advantage of the talent. Knowing that you could have eased the serpent, why did you opt instead to remain quiet?"

Eamon's angered voice filled her ears, his hands felt like ghosts on her elbows – the day he had caught her whispering to the garden snake flew before her eyes – and her hands gripped her sheets.

Dumbledore sighed softly, "It is a troubling thing, sometimes, the decisions we have to make in order to best fit in. While nearly all Cobrianas are born parseltongues, very few of the wizarding world are. The trait which makes you of your blood makes you different than those of your peers."

"I cannot say whether or not there will come a time when you must decide, Isolde, whether or not to be as you were born to – in this case, a parseltongue – or to remain fixated with who you wish to be – the witch who is not bullied for something she could not help but to be born with."

* * *

Isolde was not asked to return to classes, and Professors took her exams up to the Hospital Wing to scribe in answers to their exams – for her fingers still remained immobile and swollen – and deposit parchment littered with notes a student had been assigned to create for her on each lesson.

Cayleen, Heather, and Emmaline visited often. They smuggled Rupert from her dormitory into her hospital cot, and Augustus came by to give her the latest happening outside the wing's doors. Letters arrived from Eamon, Maureen, and her father and she dutifully worded replies through Emmaline's careful handwriting – that she was on the mend, that they need not come to visit –but the majority of her day was spent staring at the arched ceiling and thinking.

If it had been Remus who had locked his hand around her wrist, then it had to have been because James would have faced more serious consequences than detention and point deductions. There could be no other meaning behind the gesture. Remus had chosen his side, hadn't he?

Severus avoided her blatantly when she returned to the dormitory, her arm in a sterile sling, an blatantly ignored her feeble hello to retreat up the stairs to his dormitory. In Defense Against the Dark Arts, he no longer waved to her at her arrival, and always turned to Antonin Dolohov as a partner, leaving her in the company of Augustus, who tried all too hard to make the snub less obvious.

"He's just a bit sour, Izzy. Potter has still picked on him – now that you came to his rescue and got bitten instead of him – and the Slytherins are calling him a coward. It'll smooth over during the summer. He can't stay upset with you forever," the wizard had soothed as once again, Severus ignored her greeting.

"Severus can stay upset with someone for ages," she replied, and Augustus did not attempt to argue.

* * *

By the end of the school year, Isolde's fingers were wiggling just in time to begin packing for the ride home. She had leapt through the year faster than she had wished, and her marks had been excellent on her exams – but Eamon had not given her permission to spend the week at Heather's home, and Isolde couldn't help but feel she was in for a very long summer.

"I can't believe you can't come," lamented Heather as they folded away school uniforms and sat on overstuffed trunks to securely clasp them shut.

She was upset that her uncle hadn't been enthusiastic at the idea. He had not suggested they discuss it later, which was his preferred method of avoiding the subject entirely, but had written a blatant and obvious answer – no.

Eamon cared little for the pureblooded community. He thought them entitled – that they were too snobbish and exclusive – and with the disasters of muggleborn witches and wizards disappearing every week in bold print across The Daily Prophet, perhaps even the murdering kind.

Heather's mother wrote a prominent racy column in Witch Weekly, and her father worked for the Ministy of Magic. Isolde wasn't sure what had been involved in the decision, but she couldn't help but feel it had less to do with inconvenience, and more to do with lingering cold feelings from the Christmas holiday.

"Me too, it's going to be a boring summer."

* * *

She couldn't keep the feeling of dread – Maureen had written about changes she was making to her new home – as she entered the flat. At first glance, it didn't appear too different. The scratched hardwood was still scratched, the cloying smell of incense still burned, her mother's photograph still lay on the end table.

It was the white dress hanging in Isolde's closet that immediate set the dread to reality. More was changing outside of Hogwarts than the color of her bedroom, it was changing inside her family, too.

"We're planning it for a few weeks before you leave for school," Maureen had explained, "We didn't think it was right to say it over a letter. Eamon wanted to wait until you came home."

We. Somehow in the months between December and her arrival home, 'Maureen' and 'Eamon' had become a single word.

Isolde tried to be happy for her uncle. Maureen was a sweet witch, and she had done her best to create the neglected flat into a home that one could look forward to returning to each day. She had always doted on Eamon, and Isolde could find genuine appreciation for her uncle's realization that her affections had not just been simply of those of an employee to their employer, but real, solid feelings.

"I'll let you unpack."

Eamon had not come to the station to retrieve his niece. He spent the day working beneath their flat in his apothecary, and Isolde had already retired to bed by the time her uncle came through the front door.

He was avoiding her.

Throughout her childhood, the friendship between them had been solid. Words had not been needed to express affection and care for one another, it was simply known. The silence between them now was not one of comfort and unspoken knowledge of their love for quiet – it was blatant _silence_.

Their greetings were tense and each rushed away every morning, and Isolde began taking her plate to her bedroom to eat. During the day, she walked through the flat to inspect the ever-growing collections of photographs with Maureen and Eamon smiling in their frames and felt resentment.

Maureen attempted on several occasions to invoke conversation between the suddenly estranged uncle and his niece, but they fell upon deaf ears. Isolde continued to retreat to her bedroom – unable to face the silence – and Eamon continued to remain quiet.

Instead, she wrote to her father. His letters had grown in length with each reply, and the most recent had been nearly two pages long. He described his childhood in the family home – fitfully called The Nest – burrowed deep in the mountains of Germany. At night, as she listened to her uncle laughing with Maureen in the sitting room, she dreamed of her father's home.

* * *

"I thought today we might go to Madame Malkin's and get your dress."

Eamon had left before Isolde had been roused from bed by her owl. Maureen had fixed the pair breakfast, and had quietly asked Isolde to keep her plate at the table, and she had relented.

"I don't think Eamon wants me to be there."

Maureen blinked in shock, "Of course he does, Isolde! I cannot believe you would say that!"

"Well, he doesn't. He ignores me, and he's still angry with me that I was sorted into Slytherin, that the boys at school called me a murdering parseltongue, and I'm sure he'd be even madder if he knew that I've been writing my father!"

The words had slipped from her mouth before she could stop herself. The older witch observed her, eyes wide with surprise, "You've been writing… to Varick?'

Isolde nodded.

"What does he say?"

Chewing her lip, Isolde presented the bracelet to Maureen's inspection. A gasp left her mouth as she reached across to touch the jewelry.

"He sent me my mum's bracelet for Christmas – and he's been telling me about her, when she was at school. He says – he says that I wear my hair like she did."

Maureen smiled softly as she released Isolde's hand, and she looked down at her glass of tea with careful consideration.

"You do. Wear your hair like Maeve did, that is."

Shock showed upon Isolde's face. She had expected screaming – she had expected the witch to go running down the rusted steps to tell her uncle – but she had not expected _smiling_.

"I always thought it was a mistake, that Eamon demonized Varick to you. Maeve loved your father. He would come to holidays, at your grandparents' home. He was always very friendly."

She had never thought that Maeve would have brought her father home to her family, the way Eamon described the wizard. Isolde had envisioned a secret love affair, kept away from knowing eyes.

"When Maeve realized she was pregnant with you, I think she expected his reaction. Varick's father was always very angry that his son was seeing her, and the Cobrianas, they've always been very traditional," Maureen collected their empty plates, her voice soft.

"He came to my grandparents' for holidays?"

Nodding, Maureen flashed another smile, "Your grandmother loved him to pieces. She was always trying to overfeed him. At the time, he was living in this tiny flat in Knockturn Alley, and Isleen was constantly accusing him of starving," she laughed.

"Then why does my uncle hate him?"

Appearing thoughtful as she walked back to the table, Maureen sighed, "I don't think he ever understood Varick's reasoning for leaving your mother. It was never said outright, but Maeve always said he had done it as a favor to her. That's how she saw it."

Isolde felt confused. How had leaving her pregnant mother to fend for herself – and Isolde – been a favor?

"I said the Cobrianas are very traditional, Isolde. Your mother – well, she would have hated it. Their children are raised without expectations of affection – Varick once said he was five before he had a conversation with his father – and I don't think he wanted that for you."

She couldn't imagine what life would have been like, being raised by strangers, only seeing her parents occasionally – if ever. Maureen pegged the tradition as old-fashioned, of creating self-sufficient children who can fend for themselves – but Isolde felt as though it would have an opposite effect.

"Eamon never forgave Varick for it. He takes the money he sends – it's for you, after all – but he's never asked for more, he's never complained. Let's keep this between you and I, okay? Your uncle doesn't need to know."

By the end of the day, Maureen had helped Isolde select a baby-blue dress for her summer wedding, and had laid out photographs of the small chapel in Diagon Alley where their ceremony would be held. She described wild-cut flower bouquets, and tiny bottles of Felix Felicus for favors.

There was only one piece of paperwork that Isolde poured over with confusion. A list of four aurors to stand outside of the wedding reception, guarding the guests within the garden.

"It's gotten a bit worse for wear – your grandparents, well, they weren't feeling too comfortable about leaving Ballycastle. A few more lootings have happen in the Tharroway shop, and their boy still hasn't been found…" Maureen trailed off at Isolde's expression.

"They haven't found him?"

"No. I hate to say it – and I would never think to say it to them – but a few aurors have mentioned that they're not hopeful they'll find him."

Mrs. Tharroway had always been kind to Isolde. She had watched Isolde as child the few occasions Maureen had not been able to, and given her cast-off feathers as she fashioned quills. Every year on Isolde's birthday, there had been a new set of quills among her presents.

"I think it will just keep everyone feeling a bit more comfortable," Maureen finally commented.

Isolde couldn't help but agree.

"I spoke to your uncle this afternoon while you were getting fitted," Isolde had wondered about the witch's sudden absence, "And I wrote to Mrs. Rosier. They're coming to pick you up on Friday to spend the week at the Devaire's-"

Maureen's voice broke off as Isolde lunged to hug the redhead, laughing as the younger witch squealed with excitement and ran to her room to begin packing. Within moments, Heather's snowy owl had appeared in the window, writing her excitement that Isolde's uncle had changed his mind.

She was grateful for the witch. Maureen had spent hours that day to make her future niece feel included in the upcoming event, and she couldn't count the days the redheaded witch had colored gloomy days with just her presence.

She had worked relentlessly to fill the empty role in the young girl's life – the role her mother had left behind at her death. Isolde had been soothed from nightmares, had been taught to bake cookies, learned to braid her own hair – all with Maureen's careful guidance. Without the redheaded Scot, Isolde didn't know how her uncle would have survived.

* * *

Heather's home was something out of a fairytale book. Large turrets ran on either side of the mansion, and she attempted to keep her mouth closed as Emmaline snorted at her expression, clear amusement on the brunette's face. Isolde had never seen a house more beautiful, and when Mrs. Rosier rang the bell, it echoed beyond the front door.

A room alongside Heather's that served as a guest room housed two beds, where Emmaline and Isolde would spend the week. Madam Devaire had stopped by to announce times for supper, but did not linger. According to Heather, she spent the majority of her time at the Ministry of Magic where Witch Weekly headquarters were housed, or up in her study, writing endless racy romance novels.

"Are you still writing your dad?"

"He's working a lot this week, but he's been replying back. He said he would try to be there when my uncle drops me off at the platform-!"

Instantly, three pairs of eyes swiveled to her. "What?" They had piled onto Heather's massive bed with wet painted toe-nails and new issues of Witch Weekly. Isolde propped herself onto a pillow and covered her face in sudden excitement.

"I know! I'm really nervous, and I told Maureen-!" she began hastily,

"You did what?!"

"No kidding! What'd she say?!"

After a lengthy explanation of her conversation with Maureen and the two-paged reply from her father in which he said in three separate paragraphs that he 'very much looked forward to meeting' her, Cayleen let out a long whistle.

"What're you going to wear?"

Dumbfounded, Isolde found she had not even thought of it. The return to Hogwarts was less than a month away – Maureen and Eamon's wedding just around the corner of next week – and left her very little time for planning.

"You have to wear your mother's charm bracelet," sighed Emmaline dreamily, "And those earrings he sent you. What about that necklace? It was anonymous-!"

"Emmaline, quiet. There is a much needed plan here. My mother is taking us to London tomorrow. We will buy _the_ outfit, we will plan _the_ entrance, and we will prepare for _the_ reunion."

Cayleen snorted, "Heather, you make it sound like we're heading into battle, or a Quidditch match."

"This is so much more important than a stupid Quidditch match! This is Isolde's future! The foundation of their pending father-daughter relationship!"

If Isolde had thought there was only so much one could be nervous about, with Heather's falling words, she proved herself wrong.

* * *

_Thanks for reading! Chapter Seven should be up soon! As always, I'd love to know how you like everything so far!_


	7. Chapter 7

A BIG thank you to my good friend IRL Kira Mackey, for giving my fanfic a shout-out on her own Skyrim fic! If anyone is a big fan of Skyrim, you should definitely check out her stories - she's on my favorite's list and is an amazing writer.

Another show of gratitude for NamikazeMia, TheDoctorsMistress, Milavitch, lilkala, NorthwesternBaby, .Singer, claudhopper, bookivore, and Emerald Isis for following my fic. I love getting those alerts!

* * *

Isolde's shoulders itched underneath the woolen sweater dress Cayleen had loaned her. Her skin sweated beneath the fabric, her fingers trembled as she scanned the platform. Tall wizards and witches blocked her view, and her eyes scanned the tops of bowler hats, swept through crowds of new first-year students hugging their families goodbye. At her side, Heather gripped her arm as she stood on tip-toe to catch any sight of the wizard.

Maureen and Eamon had left on their honeymoon and would not arrive home for several more days. Isolde had been taken to King's Cross Station with Heather and her elder brother, Benjamin – a recent graduate of Hogwarts working at the Ministry of Magic – and had quickly made his getaway after seeing their luggage on the train.

"I don't see him!"

The smile plastered to her face was beginning to falter as the train whistled, as her eyes lifted to the clock above the exit that read ten minutes til eleven. Ten minutes.

Cayleen returned from her search of the platform, shaking her head, "Maybe he forgot the train leaves at eleven, Izzy."

Determined, Isolde shook her head. She hurried across the platform as the three hurried after her, to climb aboard a bench to better see.

What if he didn't come? What if the entire thing had been a ruse?

"He's coming," she whispered softly to the bewildered looks of those unable to hear her at her sides as the train began heartily whistling again.

The clock ticked down the time until moments before the train was scheduled to depart. No sight of the obsidian-haired wizard had been caught, and Cayleen regretfully tugged the curly-haired witch from her perch.

"I'm sorry, Isolde."

As the four made their trek to their compartment, scooting past the horrified faces of first-years as they desperately waved goodbye, Isolde felt her heart drop.

She wanted to believe that he had just forgotten – but how many times had he sat aboard this very train, perhaps in this very compartment? She wanted to believe that he had gotten side-tracked at the Ministry, unable to leave due to some legal crisis – but what was more important than meeting his only daughter for the first time? Her eyes burned as she sat down in the compartment and stared dully through the window. Perhaps he didn't truly want to meet her at all.

* * *

He dodged through the crowds of families, feeling his legs burn. Bronze eyes lifted to the clock as it hit eleven, his ears caught the sound of engines beginning to fire in preparation, his heart thundered in his throat.

"Isolde!"

Desperately, he crashed through an elderly couple, feeling his lungs burn. His eyes roamed the faces turned outside of compartment windows, the hands outstretched from their cracks in final waves.

Varick Cobriana was too late.

It had taken over an hour to excuse himself from court. On his way from the Ministry, he had been stopped on several occasions for comments by Daily Prophet reporters on his most recent trial, and had hastily avoided his father's secretary in the elevators.

His breath left his mouth in pants as he hurried to the edge, rushing down to stare into each compartment, and felt determination quicken his pulse.

He would see her.

Nearing the end of the train, his heart began to hammer. What if she was on the opposite side, away from the platform's view? Debating whether or not to simply apparate to Hogsmeade and await her arrival in the village, he stopped as though his feet commanded him to.

Within the compartment, four girls sat quietly – three surrounded a single witch. She had her face turned down, her hands covering her face. The witch's companions looked up suddenly, their eyes widened as they took in his appearance, just as the little girl turned her face.

Isolde Aideen Saeran-Cobriana stared back at him, her liquid amber eyes a mirror of his own. She stood suddenly, rushing to the window – her obsidian curls flying behind her like a mane. She looked ever bit of Maeve, and his heart thundered to new volumes.

Slowly, he pressed his hands to the window as she did, their palms separated only by glass. A smile began to spread across her face, a flush covered her cheeks.

It was as his father had once told him, he decided then as their hands hovered. As a mother begins her role with a child in her womb, a father's begins when he sets eyes on that child.

"I love you, little cobra," he whispered.

Above the screaming of the train's whistle and shouting families from the platform, he watched her mouth mirror his own words.

"I love you, daddy."

* * *

Isolde felt her stomach drop as the train began to pull away. She followed her father's slipping palms before they disappeared from view, her eyes ate the sight of him as he grew further and further away. Despite the coolness of the glass that had rested between their hands, her fingers burned.

Behind her, the three remained silent. Their breaths filled the sudden quiet within the compartment, and Isolde watched until the station appeared as merely a speck in the landscape.

"He came," she whispered.

She felt fingers encasing her hands and looked behind at Emmaline and Heather, who grasped her palms tightly between their own as they smiled.

"He did."

"He looks so much like you, Isolde."

As she sat down, and her heart began to calm beneath her chest, she looked down to her fingertips as she thought back to the sight of him appearing at the window, of the look in his panicked face. Isolde thought of his high cheekbones and strong nose, his masculine jaw as it had lowered in an toothy, wolfish smile.

If Eamon had thought she looked every bit of her mother, he had clearly not seen enough of Varick Cobriana. Isolde's midnight black hair matched his in perfect shade, their eyes were mirrored versions of themselves. They even had the same freckle, resting on the web between their index fingers and thumbs.

She thought how silly she had been that morning, digging through her closets relentlessly for a pair of shoes to match the heavy woolen dress that set off her eyes. Sitting at the small desk in her bedroom to brush her hair until the wild mane of curls became uniform, sneaking into her uncle and new aunt's bedroom to borrow a tube of Maureen's lipstick.

"We can't tell anyone."

Cayleen nodded, her eyes staring out the window of the compartment as the train took them away from London, steadily steaming towards Hogwarts.

"It'll be our secret," agreed Heather.

An ache in Isolde's chest, her father-ache, had suddenly blossomed. It filled her throat up like a stone, made her eyes burn. For moments, it had disappeared as Varick Cobriana had stared at his daughter. Suddenly, it was back, and if anything, it hurt more than it ever had before.

* * *

"Did we really look like that?"

Heather scowled at the first-years as they waited to be Sorted. Isolde shrugged, staring longingly at the empty platters before them. Her stomach rumbled within her belly. It was difficult to concentrate on anything, once someone got hungry enough, and she groaned as the first student was called.

"I think Isolde almost vomited on McGonagall's shoes."

Throwing a glare at Emmaline, Isolde held back a smile. She had remembered the nausea building in her as the hat dipped over her nose, how it had mounted in the moments before the relic had began speaking.

"Sirius Black's younger brother is there," Cayleen pointed out a small, pale boy with shaggy black hair and a pair of narrowed grey eyes.

From across the Great Hall, Isolde watched Sirius Black. He seemed to be pointedly ignoring his sibling, laughing with James, Peter, and Remus. At the sight of Remus Lupin, Isolde's mouth tightened.

She would not forget the incident in the Great Hall for her lifetime, of his shocked expression as she landed her hand across his face. Nor would the image of his face in the foggy cloud of cobra venom be erased from her memory. But most of all, she thought of the headmaster sitting alongside her cot in the Hospital Wing, saying that Remus had come to save her after the bite.

"Don't go rushing over there to hit him, Cobriana!"

Narrowing her eyes at Augustus, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere across the Slytherin's table, she watched the boy grin at her. "Don't want to start the school year with docked points."

"You know, Augustus, I truly believe that the silencing spell was invented by someone who had used a time-turner to arrive at Hogwarts and see what a prat you are," sighed Heather mournfully.

"I _am_ inspiring."

Isolde snorted, turning her face up to the hall just as McGonagall called for Regulus Black, who sat down upon the sorting stool, and before the hat had even touched his hair, had sorted the boy into Slytherin.

From across the hall, Isolde felt eyes watching her. Looking to where the four Marauders sat, she saw Sirius narrowing his eyes at her as his brother walked across the Great Hall to a roaring Slytherin table. With his eyes upon her, she stood and began cheering.

"Looks like you're earning new enemies already, Isolde," murmured Cayleen at her side.

"No, just adding wood to the fire," the bronze-eyed witch smiled.

If anything had left with her from Hogwarts from her first year, it was the new feeling of hatred. Having never felt something so intoxicating before, it had latched into her very blood. The sight of the four boys looking at her from the Gryffindor table made the feeling anew. Two could play at this game – or in this case – the whole lot of them.

It was late by the time the four girls trouped to their dormitory to climb into their familiar four-posters, but they remained awake for hours, whispering as Professor Slughorn made his rounds to check on the sleeping Slytherins.

"My brother told me he could hear James Potter on the Hogwarts Express saying he was going to get back at Isolde for all those detentions."

Emmaline's mouth was tight as she stared to the door, and they fell silent as footsteps stopped outside. They waited until the heavy foot-falls of their Head of House disappeared before leaning into their circle once more.

"We need to come up with something first – to get back at him for attacking Isolde-!"

"He got detention because he assaulted another student, Em, I don't know if we should retaliate-!"

"James Potter is about as dangerous as a dandelion."

Isolde raised her hand to stop the heated whispers within the darkness. Her breath left her mouth in a thoughtful sigh, and she watched her three friends waiting, their fists clenched.

"I have a plan."

If James Potter was angry, it was something to worry about. Isolde had spent too much time watching his triumphs over Severus Snape to question his ability to humiliate another person.

"We're going to let him," she whispered.

Bewildered expressions met her declaration.

"Potter wants everyone to believe he's this martyr for Gryffindor. That he's this great – what is the name of that muggle archer?"

"Sparrow Hood?"

"Yes, Potter is a Sparrow Hood! If we let him take revenge on Isolde, and people see him doing it – attacking someone he's already assaulted – then who really looks like the sour end of an acid pop? He does! Everyone knows about the snake, and everyone's probably heard he's furious about spending the last of the school year in detention."

Cayleen's eyes widened as Heather's voice mapped out a plan. Smiles spread across their faces as their delightfully treacherous scheme, and they crawled into beds with giddy laughter.

"This will be the end of the Marauders," whispered Heather in the dark.

Isolde desperately hoped it would be.

* * *

Time-tables were turned out at breakfast – which for the second year in a row, they were exponentially early – and poured over with plans of buddy-systems, and apparent witnesses.

"So you have History of Magic with Cayleen and Roderick Travers. He's a friend of Augustus – so I'm sure you can just hint to Rookwood that you're scared to walk to class by yourselves and he'll ask Rod to go with you."

Roderick Travers was a good-looking boy with short auburn hair and sparkling emerald eyes. He had spent the majority of the welcoming feast talking with Augustus about Quidditch try-outs, and was certainly fitted to the beater position he hoped for.

"Potions you have with me. Rookwood will probably wait for you outside of History to go with you to the dungeons, he has class with us too. We have Potions with the Gryffindors."

Augustus took a seat alongside Isolde, sending a sleepy smile her way as he reached for toast.

"What about Charms with me and Heather?" Cayleen whispered, her eyes narrowing at the new addition to their circle as he wolfed down pumpkin juice.

"Zane Scabior is in that class."

"Shove off, Augustus!"

The dark-haired boy winked at Isolde as Emmaline swatted at him with a Daily Prophet before leaping up to find a seat among Roderick, Zane, and and Trenton Gibbon.

"We'll plan the rest at lunch," Heather's eyes focused on the clock as students began gathering their rucksacks.

Cayleen found Augustus before leaving the Great Hall, and whispered to him with wide eyes as Isolde waited by the doors. Within moments, Roderick had nodded to Augustus and began following the red-head.

"I'll walk with you lot to class."

Augustus waved to the three as they departed the Great Hall, and Isolde cast a glance over her shoulder at the narrowed eyes of Sirius Black and James Potter, and grinned.

Isolde had guessed last year that she was likely the only student who paid attention in History of Magic. Augustus had traded her an entire box of chocolate from Honeyduke's for her notes – and as she stole a glance around the droopy-eyed students in the room – he likely would be doing so again.

Just as Heather predicted, Augustus Rookwood was waiting outside of the classroom as they departed class. He grinned at Isolde cheerfully and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

"Don't worry about those lot," he muttered as she caught sight of James and Sirius appearing by a staircase, "I've spread the word."

Professor Slughorn had assigned partners before they had even had the opportunity to arrive at their seats, perhaps in a hopeful wish that it would result in less accidents than the year before, and Isolde found herself seated next to Augustus. Heather waved from the front of the classroom, partnered with Slade Wilkes, another Slytherin.

As they brewed a simple acne remedy, Isolde felt eyes burning into her back. Augustus scowled the entire time at their cauldron, his wand poised over the bubbling potion.

"They're just glaring at you."

She smiled gratefully at the boy next to her as he stole a glance over his shoulder. Despite Heather's lingering dislike for the boy, Isolde considered him to be a friend. He had escorted Isolde down to the dungeons, his arm firm around her shoulders - and when her bag had mysteriously split over the staircase – had picked up her books without comment.

Her stomach had jumped at the sight of him at breakfast, and the place where his arm had rested across her shoulders still felt warm. Heather would disagree, but the black-haired witch found the boy rather cute.

"Ignore them. They really don't matter, and everyone will side with you at the end of the day. Four against one, it's a pity they don't torture students anymore," he muttered.

"Thanks."

Defense Against the Dark Arts left them exhausted after an hour of practicing disarming charms, and Isolde more used Augustus for a leaning support as he walked them to the Great Hall for lunch. He deposited her among her friends before sheepishly grinning and hurrying off to plan Quidditch tryouts with the other Slytherins.

It was decided that Zane Scabior would take Heather, Cayleen, and Isolde to Charms, and then Augustus had volunteered Roman Nott to escort her and Emmaline to Herbology.

"We're just going to have to meet up for Transfiguration, just stay with a lot of students. We have that class with the Ravenclaws, so I don't think we have to worry too much."

Isolde cast a glance at the Gryffindor table, where she met the narrowed glare of James Potter. A smile crept across her face and she devilishly threw a wave.

"You're terrible," laughed Heather.

"For Astronomy, you're on your own. I'll ask Rookwood if he'll walk you to the tower."

But Isolde wasn't worried as she looked at the infuriated faces of the Gryffindors, who had begun whispering among themselves, heads bent in retribution.

"Perfect."

By the end of the day, the Marauders had not struck. After every class, they had been peering at her from the corridors, the outline of their wands showing from within their robes. Mysteriously, Roderick Travers and Augustus Rookwood had appeared after Transfiguration to walk the smaller Slytherin to Astronomy, and she had followed a group of Slytherins to the Great Hall for supper.

A nagging thought had entered the witch's mind. Eventually, she imagined, their ruse to be constantly accompanied would fail, and after starving a flame of revenge for so long of oxygen would merely create a portal for a larger inferno.

There was a letter waiting in their dormitory from her father, and as she read his handsome script, her shoulders trembled. She desperately wished he had just been a few moments earlier, so that the compartment's window had not separated them, that she could confide in the anguished feelings over her summer holiday, but there were no definitive lines to what she could tell her estranged father, and what she could not.

Instead, she wrote back about the Sorting ceremony and agreed solemnly that they did indeed look alike. She described her first day of classes, and how thrilled she had been to find room in her belly after the dinner course to stuff it with cakes from the dessert platters. As her owl left their dormitory in the darkness of night, she felt torn.

Surely, her father would understand the utter feeling of loneliness she had felt standing in the front of a flowered gazebo in Diagon Alley's ceremonial garden. How she had stolen a glance to her uncle, who seemed ever determined to ignore his suddenly rebellious niece, and felt her eyes burn.

Most certainly, he would sympathize with Isolde's lie of a headache so she could miss the reception, where Maureen and Eamon splattered cake at themselves. Or how she had feigned sleep the night they had left for Ireland, and how her skin had burned where Maureen had smoothed her hair.

Isolde had not told Varick Cobriana any of her feelings as she had stood alongside her soon-to-be aunt at their alter, or how she had snuck to the window to watch them depart in the night. It was her desperate wish that no one ever know about that secret – that the clicking sound of Maureen's heels on their scratched hardwood floors had made shameful tears leave her eyes.

Eamon had been furious when she returned from school. It was only due to his new wife that Isolde had been allowed to spend a week at the Devaire's, though they had argued through the night. In Eamon's eyes, it was Isolde who was to blame for the snake bite, and he had viciously accused her of speaking parseltongue to the beast.

"She's after attention, Maureen. Negative or positive, she doesn't give a damn."

Her father had written words of worry, had questioned why she had not used her gift, and had seemed genuinely upset when he learned it was an object of ridicule used against her.

If Maureen and Eamon wanted to start a life without Isolde, she decided amidst the snoring of Cayleen and tapping footsteps of house elves, then she would begin her own without them.

* * *

I am really sorry about the late update for Chapter Seven. My boyfriend is in the Army and he came home for Christmas, so I was kind of a shrieking giddy mess for two weeks. Next Chapter will be up next weekend, I promise! I'd love to know your thoughts on the "big moment" in this chapter!


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