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Chapter Text

For the first few years of her life, Renata Lestrange knows nothing outside of Lestrange Manor. Mother dotes on her and plays with her, Father spoils her, Grandfather indulges her, the house elves obey her every whim. She's the sole Lestrange of her generation, and the way things are going she will be the best prospect for the Black Heiress as well. So Mother's parents dote on her as much as Grandfather, the culmination of their hopes to get the power from the main Black line to their own.

She has nothing to compare her childhood to. As far as she is aware, she lives an entirely normal life. Everyone she knows lives in a great grim house with cursed objects and beaten elves. She doesn't think the wounds her parents bear, or the slurs they fling are the slightest bit out of the ordinary.

Of course she stays close to Mother when they go to Diagon Alley, she doesn't want to touch a Mudblood. What if she gets dirty too? 

Renata is a child. She questions nothing that her parents tell her.

She is seven when everything falls apart.

The Dark Lord vanishes, and days later her parents leave the manor, never to return.

Grandfather takes her to a big room with lots of strangers, and Mother and Father chained in chairs at the centre with Uncle Rabastan and her tutor Mr Crouch. She says goodbye to her parents and uncle dutifully, albeit with no small amount of confusion.

"We will be back, Renata." Father says calmly, kneeling in front of her with his chained hands on her shoulders "Our Lord will return and release us. Your grandfather will take care of you while we are indisposed. Behave for him, alright? We will see you soon."

Mother peppers Renata's face with kisses. "Be good for Grandfather, Renny. Learn lots of curses and remember you're better than anyone else. Make us proud baby."

And then they are gone.

Grandfather and Renata go back to the manor alone. It feels colder and emptier without Mother, Father and Uncle Rabastan. Without Mother's laughter to lift it, the silence feels almost oppressive. Father isn't there to light the lamps when she has a nightmare, so that the darkness stays stifling until she calls an elf. Uncle Rabastan doesn't clatter in at all hours, or light huge fires that make Grandfather scold him for wasting fuel.

Grandfather misses them as much as Renata does, though he doesn't say so. She can tell, even though he tries to hide it. His moods get darker and grimmer, and he spends hours locked away in his study.

If he talks to her at all, it is to lament that she is growing up in the time after the Dark Lord's defeat, and tell her stories about their great deeds. A couple of times he teaches her curses and rituals that even Mother had said should wait until Hogwarts.

The elves are even quieter than ever because of Grandfather's dark moods. After he cuts Jolly's head off for spilling a tray at tea time Renata can hardly tell they have any elves.

When an inspection comes from the Ministry, something about standards of elf treatment, Grandfather gets a fine. They aren't allowed to kill the elves anymore, and physical punishments are barely tolerated.

Renata doesn't understand why, they own the elves so shouldn't they be allowed to do what they want?

The Ministry inspection doesn't say anything about them mistreating the banisters that she'd cracked practicing Quidditch the day before, or the scorch marks in the ritual room. They complain about the contents of the library instead. It's too dark apparently, and they are worried about the atmosphere for a child to grow up in. They tell Grandfather he should spend more time with her, and teach her less Dark Magic. They tut over the cursed objects on the mantles of every fireplace and shriek at the grandfather clock that shoots bolts out of it every hour on the hour.

Renata is very glad when they go.

She is even gladder when Grandfather decides to spend the subsequent week with her. They take all of the cursed and Dark things on display and hide them in the attic. It's fun finding new hiding places, and she's never been allowed in the attic for so long before.

Grandfather lets her keep Mother's vanity set though. That had come from Grandmother Druella who had taken ill and died shortly after the Dark Lord vanished and Mother was imprisoned. It's a Rosier heirloom, cursed to scorch the skin of any non-Pureblood who touches it and to scream if someone without Rosier blood uses it. Grandmother Lestrange, who died before Renata was born, was a Rosier, so even though Mother was a Black she has enough Rosier blood for the set to treat her well.

It lives on her own vanity now, the hand mirror, the little brushes and pots and things. It's like having a piece of Mother with her. Father's pocket watch lives in Grandfather's pocket now, but the snapped halves of his wand and Mother's are kept in a little drawer on Renata's vanity.

Aside from that, it is as if neither Mother nor Father nor Uncle Rabastan had ever existed in Lestrange Manor.

Renata hates it.

The next four years of her life are spent almost entirely alone. Grandfather sees her less and less. He hardly leaves his study, and when he does he barely speaks to her aside from mealtimes.

Her tutors had been dispensed with after Mother and Father had been taken away - Mr Crouch had gone with them, as had Miss and Mr Carrow, and Grandfather hadn't hired any new tutors.

Her friends had hardly visited - some of them had lost their own families, so had been given to relatives on the continent or elsewhere in England. The rest had kept the parents, but Grandfather had explained that those parents had betrayed the cause and so those families were dead to them - even the Malfoys had betrayed them, so Grandfather wouldn't let her see any of the Black side of their family. There was no reason to make new friends, as no one outside of the Dark Lord's followers was worth associating with. Even the elves had kept to themselves, staying mostly in the kitchens and  only leaving to tidy and clean in the dead of night.

So she read anything she could get her hands on in the library, and flew on the overgrown Quidditch pitch, and played games with her reflection in the enchanted mirrors. It was a lonely life, and monotonous, but she swam in summers and skated in winters and got letters from the Blacks and Malfoys on Yules and birthdays, and read so many books that she loved them better than most people. It was what it was, and no more, no less. She didn't mind. She didn't really know much else - and besides, she had promised to behave for her grandfather.

So she tries to be quiet and obedient, and not trouble Grandfather too much. But it is so lonely that a tiny part of her is glad when her Hogwarts letter comes after years of seeing no one but Grandfather and the elves since the Ministry visitor.

Chapter Text

The owl that drops the letter off is a handsome tawny with an attitude problem. Her fingers are bleeding and bruised as she carries the letter to the study and knocks on the closed door.

"Grandfather?" She ventures. "My letter came."

Silence.

"Grandfather?"

After a moment, the lock clicks open and her grandfather's pale, drawn face peers out. "Letter? What letter? Black shouldn't be sending you anything in summer."

Renata shoves the letter towards him. "Not the Blacks, Grandfather. My Hogwarts letter."

"Hogwarts?" His face twists into a sneer. "You want to go now that it's under the control of that filthy Muggle-lover?"

Renata knows the opinions of her grandfather and everyone else on Albus Dumbledore. He's a meddler and manipulator and blood traitor of the highest order. Despite his unpopularity with the majority of the population he has somehow managed to remain Headmaster, Mugwump, and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. He's heavily biased against Slytherins and the Olde Ways, champions Light Magic and condemns Dark Magic.

It would be so much safer to stay at home, away from his spheres of influence. Grandfather has promised a dozen times to get her tutors so that she won't have to endure Hogwarts in its downfallen form. But he hasn't. She knows he won't, not for years, because he never remembers. Most days he hardly remembers how old she is.

If she wants to learn magic, then she has no choice but Hogwarts. Beauxbatons doesn't take international students, Durmstrang is keeping away from any links to true followers now that the traitor Karkaroff is at the helm, and Ilvermorny is even more disgustingly Light than Hogwarts. There are other schools, but none prestigious enough for the last Lestrange.

"I want to go to the same place as my parents." Renata says instead. "I want to see the Common Room under the lake and fly for Slytherin and sneak books from the Restricted Section. I want to have what they did."

Something softens in Grandfather's face. "It won't be the same." He warns her, but Renata doesn't care.

Her parents went to Hogwarts and she will too.

She sends the owl back with her acceptance letter and Grandfather emerges from his study long enough to take her to Diagon Alley for her supplies. Aunt Narcissa spots her in Gringotts, but they barely have time to say hello before Grandfather is leading her out to Flourish and Blotts.

He doesn't buy her an owl but gives Renata her own raven from the Lestrange ravenry because their family have always used ravens instead of owls. It's a tradition that she is proud to carry on with all the others. She calls the raven Ophiuchus for the serpent-bearer, and to carry on the Black traditions to make her mother proud.

Aunt Narcissa sends her a little black kitten, and a note that her Cousin Draco called it 'Socks'. Grandfather scoffs but lets her keep it as long as she keeps it away from the raven.

Renata sets out for Hogwarts on the first of September with her things all packed into her monogrammed, enchanted trunks, Ophiuchus on her shoulder and Socks in a little basket on top of her trunks.

Grandfather accompanies her to the Floo but no further. He doesn't like leaving the manor and having to mingle with the blood traitors and mudbloods, so Renata emerges onto Platform 9 3/4 entirely alone. Well, except for Ophiuchus and Socks.

There are a lot of people on the platform. More than she has ever seen in one place already and she's forty five minutes early. Everyone is laughing and crying and shouting and running, owls are screeching and babies crying and the stone echoes everything back twofold. If Renata didn't have Grandfather's warning to show herself correctly echoing in her ear, she would curl up into a ball and start crying then and there.

She has spent her whole life in quiet, dark Lestrange Manor. For the last four years she has only seen one other human being with any regularity. This is too much. Far, far too much.

Renata gets onto the train as quickly as she can, finds an empty compartment and slams the door shut. It doesn't shut the noise out, but it dims it a bit at least. She's tempted to start crying then, but anyone could look in from the platform or the train corridor. Renata will not let Grandfather or her parents down. She swallows hard once or twice, blinks fiercely and pulls a book out of her trunk at random.

When a group of older students spill into the compartment, they help her get her trunk up onto the rack before settling down into a noisy huddle and promptly ignoring her.

Part of her feels offended by it, but mostly she doesn't care. She doesn't want to talk to anyone - even just saying hello and thanking them for helping her with her trunk is more than she has spoken to anyone at one go in years. She gets through three books during the train ride.

One of the older girls in the compartment introduces herself as Alice as they get close to Hogsmeade, and helps her change into her school robes. Alice's robes are lined with black and yellow, while Renata's are still colourless.

"I'm going to be in Slytherin like my parents." Renata says as boldly as she can muster.

Alice's smile looks a little tight. "That's loyal of you, kid." She replies, making a slashing gesture at one of the other girls who opens her mouth. "What's your name?"

"Renata Lestrange." Renata says. She tilts her chin up. People are awful and she is scared of them but she is proud of her parents, and what they fought for.

One of the girls sniggers. "Makes sense." She says in a tone that Renata imagines her books would describe as snide.

Alice shoots her a look. "Be nice Izzy, she's only a kid."

Izzy huffs, but settles her blue robes more firmly about her shoulders and sets to ignoring Renata again.

That's fine with Renata. She waits until Alice stops trying to talk to her and then hurries onto the platform, leaving Ophiuchus and Socks with her trunk.

A terrible wild man leads them to the boats, so tall that he has to be a half-breed. Maybe even a full giant. If Grandfather had told her about this monster then maybe even loyalty to her parents couldn't have induced her to leave the safety of her home.

She grips the edge of the little boat grimly as they skim across the lake, and reminds herself that she's a strong swimmer. It's still scary.

She ignores the red headed boy who tries to make conversation with her all the way up the steps. He's got worn robes and messy hair and so he can't be anyone that Grandfather or her parents would want her associating with. She's here to make them proud. She can't fail on the first night.

He gives up by the time they've been ushered into a room off the Great Hall, and turns to someone else to talk. Renata finds that without someone else to focus on, she is suddenly deathly afraid. There are so many people in this room, and more in the room beyond - she can hear the hum of their voices like the roaring of thunder.

Renata blanks out. She doesn't remember the entrance of the ghosts, nor Deputy Headmistress McGonagall's speech nor the song of the Sorting Hat. She doesn't remember anything until 'Lestrange, Renata' is called and she snaps back into being.

She's vaguely aware of the hush falling over the hall, and the hiss of whispers. They are blood traitors, the whisperers, she reminds herself. Beneath her.

She is a Lestrange, and the daughter of a Black. She will not shame them now.

Just as Deputy Headmistress McGonagall opens her mouth to call Renata's name again, Renata steps out of the huddle of other first years. She holds her back straight and her head up, and tries desperately to stop the wobbling of her lower lip. There are too many eyes on her, the eyes of every person in that crowded hall. Her skin is crawling at the mere thought.

McGonagall's eyes soften a little, and she holds the hat up. "Just sit on the stool for a minute dear, and then you can disappear to your House table." She murmurs, so quietly that even Renata can hardly hear her.

That is...kinder than Renata had thought she would be. Grandfather had told her how biased and awful she had been to Mother and Father, and that it would only be worse now that she had free reign. There is no Dark Lord to check her now. And yet she has comforted Renata. Been kinder than even Grandfather has been for a long time now.

Renata manages a wobbly smile, and sits down on the stool. She squeezes her eyes shut as soon as she sees the many pairs of eyes bent on her. The soft fabric of the hat slips down over her head, obscuring her eyes, and she relaxes a bit.

Slytherin, she thinks, Slytherin, Slytherin, Slytherin.

Slytherin? A creaky little voice murmurs in her ear. Are you sure?

Slytherin, she thinks fiercely, Slytherin, Slytherin, Slytherin.

You wouldn't suit Slytherin, the creaky voice continues, not at all. What about Ravenclaw?

Slytherin. Renata thinks with as much confidence as she can.

The Ravenclaw tower is quiet, you know. Much less socially fraught than Slytherin. You would be eaten alive in Slytherin after so many years alone.

Slytherin! Renata mentally shouts. Please, please, my parents were in Slytherin, I want to make them proud. I want to be in their House.

The creaky voice is silent for a moment. She wonders frantically if maybe she's done something wrong. If perhaps the Hat will refuse to sort her and she will be sent home to Lestrange Manor to be alone again forever.

But, just as she is about to start crying, the voice speaks up again. Loyal little thing, aren't you?

Yes. Renata says firmly. I am loyal to my parents, and their House. Please.

I know just the place for you, the voice says, with an odd note in it. Loyalty, yes, and fair play, justice, yes yes. You need to learn the way of things, though.

I know, Renata responds, I can do it. I can thrive in Slytherin, I promise.

No, the hat says, not Slytherin for you, loyal little thing. You'd do far better in HUFFLEPUFF!

Renata freezes.

The Deputy Headmistress has to propel her off the stool with a touch to her shoulder before she can make her numb legs move towards the Hufflepuff table. There's been some horrible mistake, surely?

But her robes shimmer, and turn black and yellow as she sits down. The hat blithely continues to sort the next person in line.

A Hufflepuff?

Lestranges do not cry in public, Renata reminds herself. Blacks do not shame themselves. Do your family proud.

She hardly tastes any of the food that she forces past her lips, nor does she hear any of the conversation that flies about her.

Hufflepuff? How will she tell Grandfather? How will he bear it? And when Mother and Father come back, how can she possibly face them?

"Hey." The poke at her shoulder jostles her out of her thoughts. "You in there?"

Renata has to blink a few times before she can focus on the face in front of her. Bright yellow hair, black eyes and a wide, toothy smile. She manages a nod.

The smile widens. "Pass the potatoes?"

Renata passes them.

"Thanks!"

She opens her mouth and shuts it a few times before she can force anything out. "You're welcome." She manages at last.

The smile turns positively blinding. "I'm Nymphadora Tonks." It says cheerily. That isn't a name Renata knows...is this a Mudblood? Her skin crawls, and she wants to scrub it until the taint is washed away. Oh, Grandfather was right, she should never have come to Hogwarts.

But she promised not to shame him. "Renata Lestrange." She responds as coolly as she can, hoping the potential Mudblood will be chased away.

No such luck. The smile hardly dims. "I know!" It says. "We're cousins, you know, I've been dying to meet you for ages."

Cousins?

Not a Mudblood then.

But distantly related at best, maybe a few lines over on the Black side. She doesn't know the Black lines as well as the Lestrange, but she does know that her only close cousin is Draco - and Aunt Narcissa can't have any more children after him.

The question must be visible on her face.

"Our mums are sisters." The smile says helpfully. "My mum's Andromeda, Bellatrix's sister, you know."

Renata frowns. "I don't know any Andromedas." She moves the smile from potential distant relative to imposter.

"Course not. She was disowned for not marrying Lucius Malfoy, your mum wouldn't have talked about her. But you've seen where she used to be on the tapestry, right?"

Well, this Nymphadora Tonks knows family secrets. There is a scorch in between Mother and Aunt Narcissa on the tapestry - and a void in paintings of the sisters. But she hasn't been to any Black properties in four years so she might be misremembering. 

It would explain why Grandfather doesn't let her see Mother's family now. Breaking a marriage contract is an unpardonable disgrace on the family.

She looks back at the smile. There is the same dimple as Mother. The heavily lidded eyes. The wild curls, the ones that Renata did not inherit, are waving about this girl's face. If she is an imposter, she is a very good one - and besides, Hogwarts has wards against such things, or so Grandfather told her.

A cousin her own age. One she didn't even know existed.

She wonders what it would have been like, growing up with a playmate. Someone to take her side in games. To read with, swim with, fly with. Maybe to curl up with on the days that the manor felt very cold and dark, someone to lift the impossible weight that pressed down on her.

This Nymphadora is Pureblood at least, if she is Renata's kin and has the Black blood stamped so strongly in her features. Her mother may have disgraced them but Nymphadora had nothing to do with it, and her father will have been a kind man indeed to marry a disgraced woman, and a powerful one to get away with it. She would be an acceptable friend, surely?

Slowly, Renata forces her lips into the shape of a smile and holds out her hand again. "It would be nice to have family in this place." She admits.

Nymphadora beams and disregards her hand entirely in favour of pulling her into a crushing hug. "I've wanted to meet you my whole life." She almost shouts into Renata's ear. "This is going to be amazing."

Renata hasn't been hugged since the day her parents left. Grandfather isn't a hugger, and Father isn't either so without Mother present she has hardly touched anyone in four years.

So even though her ribs are creaking dangerously in Nymphadora's embrace, and she is wheezing something embarassing, she doesn't try to get away. Something cold and hard inside her, something that settled there the day her parents were taken away and all the light went out of her life, is melting in that tight embrace. Her eyes are prickling again.

When the feast is over, they follow Alice, the Hufflepuff Prefect, to the dormitories where Nymphadora and Renata claim the beds beside each other.

They are strange beds, less worn than the beds in Lestrange Manor but with itchier sheets and simpler hangings. There is far less space in the dormitory as well, with four girls in a single room for dressing, sleeping and studying. Even the bathroom is shared, as she discovers when Ellen Ambler bangs on the door fifteen minutes into her bath.

When she curls up in her nightgown and whispers goodnight to Nymphadora, she feels very small and alone.

But when Nymphadora is scrambling into her bed almost as soon as the first sob claws its way out of her chest, it helps a little. She cries into Nymphadora's shoulder and holds onto her cousin as tightly as she can. It's been years since anyone held her as she cried. When Nymphadora starts to sniffle herself and Renata twists to throw her arms about the other girl, she feels less alone than she ever has.

They sleep in the same bed that night, curled up and trusting to their shared blood to make a total stranger familiar.

Chapter Text

After that, Renata and Dora (never Nymphadora) become almost inseperable. They walk together in the corridors, study together, sit together in class and at meals, even their spare time is spent together. Dora is loud and fearless, so she does the talking for both of them when Renata feels like crying if one more pair of eyes settles on her.

She uses her mother's brush on Dora's hair, and the magic in it suceeds in taming her cousin's wild hair where nothing else has. Dora's not come into her own as a Metamorphmagus yet, she explains, she can change colour but hair texture is beyond her for now. One day she will be able to give herself silky straight hair with a thought, but not yet.

Until then, Renata pulls her mother's brush through the unruly curls and watches with satisfaction as they fall into orderly ringlets. Dora's only a quarter Rosier, so the brush warms up a little and hums, but it's being wielded by Renata so it obediently refrains from doing damage.

Renata refuses to speak to Ellen Ambler after she tries to use it though. Sweet, innocent Dora thinks it's because she's furious that Ambler had touched the only thing Renata has left of her mother. Renata can't bring herself to tell her cousin that it's because the brush scorching Ambler's hand means her blood is impure. She can't burst her cousin's bubble and show her the halfbreeds and mudbloods infecting Hogwarts.

Let Dora believe that their dormmate is pure, and a worthy friend. Renata cannot bring herself to do more. Ambler is fine with that, taking offence at being burned by Renata's brush as if it is not her dirty blood at fault.

Alice, Prefect Cooper rather, halfheartedly tries to get the two girls to make up but is called away to break apart two third year boys who asked the same girl to Hogsmeade.

And so the first two weeks of Hogwarts go. Renata is relaxing a little, almost hoping that she will be able to enjoy her time at the school, corrupted or not. Her grandfather had sent her a letter reassuring her that true believers had come from Hufflepuff before, and that her house only show that she is loyal to her family and to the cause. She will just have to be loyal while wearing black and yellow instead of green and silver.

That awful cold thing in the middle of her is almost warm now.

She is walking down the corridor with Dora one day when she bumps into Marcellus Avery, a Slytherin three years her senior whom she vaguely recognises from Before, when her parents were free and the Dark Lord was still there to guide them. 

She opens her mouth to apologise, but his face twists into a sneer. "Out of my way, blood-traitor." He spits, and pushes past her, vanishing down the corridor before she fully registers his words.

Dora yells something at his retreating back and makes what must be a rude gesture at it. She turns back to Renata and slings an arm about her shoulder. "You okay?" She asks. ''You aren't used to people being awful like I am."

Slowly, Renata parses the words. She shrugs. "Why did he call me a blood traitor?" 

"Are you really asking that?" Dora responds, looking at her strangely. 

"Yes!" Renata says. She looks down at her hands. "I've been loyal, l promised I would be and I have been. There have been true believers from Hufflepuff before, and at least my parents weren't traitors like Avery's were. We've been more loyal than him. Maybe he's jealous that the Dark Lord will favour the Lestranges loyalty over the Averys cowardice when he returns." Yes, that works. The Averys were always crawling worms, her mother used to say, and Mother was always right.

Dora stares at her. The arm around her shoulders is removed. "Renata, You-Know-Who murdered innocent people. He was a madman, and he treated his followers horribly. I don't think Avery is jealous of your family's position in a dead order of facists."

"Then what do you think it was?" Renata demands, ignoring Dora's insults to the Dark Lord. Her cousin is very innocent in some ways, and no doubt has heard far too many wicked rumours from the tainted and the traitors in Hogwarts. She can address Dora's mistaken beliefs later, and find out what a facist is. 

Dora's hair goes beige and colourless, and her lips thin. She twists her hands together. "You really can't think?"

"No?" Renata knows she is right. Unlike Dora, she knows the Dark Lord will return and free her parents and usher in a new golden age. She just has to be patient. 

Dora swallows hard. "I'm a halfblood. He thinks you're tainted by association."

Silence. 

A halfblood? Andromeda Black ran from Lucius Malfoy for a Mudblood? 

She has slept in the same bed as the spawn of a mudblood. Tainted her mother's vanity set with the touch of this girl's dirty blood. 

She blithely assumed that she was pure, that her command of the Black bloodline gift and her Black features meant she was someone worth knowing. 

She had never dreamed that she was in fact letting a viper at her breast. A filthy, tainted thing draped in the trappings of the pure. 

"Renata?" A hand reaches out towards her.

She opens her mouth, and the voice that issues from it doesn't sound like hers. "Don't touch me, mudblood spawn." She says, and can hear Mother in the words.

Hurt flashes across Dora's, Tonks's face. It is quickly followed by rage and something so dark that it wouldn't be out of place in the dungeons beneath Lestrange Manor.

"I thought you were better than this." Tonks says levelly, with an edge to it that Mother would be proud of. "I thought you'd realised what a load of rot all this purity nonsense is. Maybe it'll keep you company at night, Death Eater."

She walks away from Renata and vanishes into the shadowed hallway. Renata doesn't care. She doesn't. The girl is a halfblood, the product of a Pureblood witch tainting her precious blood with the spawn of Muggles. She is below Renata. She is not worthy of her friendship or her time. Renata won't miss her. 

She swallows hard, still staring at the empty space in which Tonks had been just moments before. She should thank Avery for alerting her to her near betrayal of the moral code to which she holds, just as her parents hold to it. But she can't bring herself to move. 

*****************

"Hey, kid." Prefect Cooper says, sitting down beside her three days later. "What's split up the dream team?"

Renata looks up from her Charms homework and meets the older girl's eyes silently. It takes a long time to work up the energy to open her mouth through the encroaching ice, but Prefect Cooper waits patiently. 

"Dora's a halfblood." Is all she manages. That's the crux of the issue, isn't it? Her cousin, with whom she has shared so much, whom she had trusted so much in so short a space of time, is not her cousin at all. She is an imposter, an abomination, the product of a Pureblood witch tainting her blood with a Mudblood's stolen magic. 

And she had done such a good job of seeming like a Pureblood. She had the Black bloodline gift, which no one had possessed in full for generations - Aunt Narcissa's control over her hair colour was astonishing, and Dora had outpaced her as a child. She was powerful, more powerful than Renata, and stronger in body, and had seemed for all the world like the perfect pureblood. 

But she isn't. 

She's a filthy halfblood. Renata's skin crawls at the thought. Her mother must be so disappointed in her. There was a reason her mother didn't talk about Andromeda, and Renata should have realised it. She should have trusted her mother. 

Prefect Cooper has been silent for a while, Renata realises. She looks up to see the older girl's lips pressed together so tightly that they're almost gone. 

"Prefect Cooper?"

Silence. 

Then, at last. "Is being a halfblood a problem, Lestrange?" And for the first time, Renata hears the same disdain placed on her last name as she does from other people. 

Renata stares at the prefect. "I don't understand." She manages, too stung by the tone of voice to really register the words.

"I'm a muggleborn." Prefect Cooper says flatly. "I thought you knew. I imagine Tonks thought you knew too." 

Cooper is a Mudblood? She feels the blood draining from her face. 

"But...but you're powerful." Renata manages. "And you're a Prefect. And you know everything. You can't be a Mudblood."

Prefect Cooper is staring at her incredulously. "None of the things you listed have anything to do with blood." She says. "That's just hard work and studying."

"Not power." Renata says, trying to call up vague memories of her mother's own speeches on the topic. "Not that. That's blood. That's generations of purity. It's the culmination of our whole society."

"Alright, Lestrange," Cooper says, with studied indifference heavy in her voice, "have it your way. When you've decided whether or not people should be tortured and murdered for being born in the wrong bloodline, come and talk to me, yeah? But until you've actually thought it over and stopped mindlessly parroting the adults in your life, don't expect me to help you. Go to the other prefects." 

She stands up and walks away. Renata stares down at her Charms homework. She doesn't care what Cooper thinks of her, not when Cooper is a filthy disgusting mudblood who shouldn't dare to sully the hallowed halls of Hogwarts with her tainted presence. 

But she is cold. So cold. As cold as she is in midwinter in Lestrange Manor, when there are no fires lit because Uncle Rabastan is no longer there to set raging bonfires in every hearth. The ice that had been receding from her bones is returning twice as strong as it ever had. 

Renata keeps her eyes on her essay, and tries to stop her shivers. 

Chapter Text

"You're being an idiot, you know." Marjorie Sharpe tells her somewhere around Samhain.

Unlike the other girls in their dorm, Sharpe is a pureblood. Her family aren't powerful or notable or even well known, but she hasn't a drop of muggle blood in her veins. Mother would approve of her more than Tonks or Ambler. She might cry if she knew that Renata had to share a room with a halfblood and a mudblood.

Renata ignores Sharpe. They aren't friends, and the other girl has no right to comment on her decisions or beliefs. Unfortunately, Sharpe doesn't see it the same way.

"Lestrange." She snaps, waving her hand in front of Renata's face. "I know you aren't actually thinking about McGonagall's essay. You're miserable, Tonks is miserable, Sprout is worried because your grades are slipping and Cooper has washed her hands of you. Our dorm is a nightmare whenever you and Tonks or Ambler are there together and I am sick of the mess created by your thoughtless obedience to the views that got your parents thrown in jail for torture and murder."

Her dormmate isn't about to let this go. With an internal sigh, Renata puts her quill down and turns to meet Sharpe's pale eyes. She smiles her father's thin smile at the other girl, the one that is splashed all over the copy of the Prophet that Grandfather keeps pinned up in his office. "What do you want me to say, Sharpe? Tonks and Ambler are no concern of mine. I am proud of my parents for fighting for what they believe in."

"No you aren't." Sharpe says, her keen eyes holding Renata's own. "You haven't seen them since you were seven. You don't know them, Lestrange. You think clinging to the cause they fought for will bring them back to you but it won't, and it won't make your grandfather care about you any more."

"Shut up." Renata's wand is pointing at Sharpe before she even realises it. "You don't know anything about my family."

"Are you going to curse me?" Sharpe asks lazily. "Go on then. Use one of those handy little Dark curses your mummy showed you before she tortured a defenceless man and woman into insanity in their own home. Show me just how righteous their cause was."

Sharpe's eyes don't waver from Renata's own, not even flicking towards her wand once. She seems amused, more than anything else. There is no fear in her pale eyes. Not a drop of it, not even a hint.

Renata knows the words and the motions off by heart. Just a few little words and she can wipe that insufferably smug look off of Sharpe's face.

She opens her mouth. Tries to force her tongue and lips to make the right shapes, to keep her wand steady. She braces herself for the heady rush of Dark magic, to see the consequences of the spell against a real person rather than just the dummies and muggles her mother had given her.

Sharpe won't be able to fight back - she wasn't taught the Dark Arts at the feet of the two greatest duelists to swear to the cause. She's a first year like Renata, but unlike Renata she doesn't know anything more than how to make things float or turn a match into a needle.

Her wand lowers, shaking violently. 

Something softens in Sharpe's cold eyes. "You aren't like them, Lestrange.'' She says quietly.

"What do you know?" Renata snaps at her, feeling the hot flush of humiliation prickling at the back of her neck. Her hands twist together so tightly that her wand creaks.

Sharpe's lips twist wryly. "My parents were Death Eaters too, you know. Low ranking grunts, not Inner Circle like yours. They were killed when I was six, and I was given to some third cousin twice removed."

"And? Everyone has a sob story, it was a war.'' Her voice shakes a little, but Sharpe does her the courtesy of not noticing.

"They were killed because my uncle ran away with a muggleborn prisoner and they were the closest relatives that could be used to punish him. That third cousin was the only member of my family who survived the purge. He and his wife were kinder to me than any true believer ever was. They showed me a lot of things that my parents never would have. Helped me get some perspective. Have you ever actually seen the Muggle world? Or a Muggle outside of your family's dungeons?"

Renata opens her mouth to protest, but shuts it again. She bites her tongue, hard.

"Thought so." Sharpe says. "Muggles are very different living their lives rather than chained up and used as practice dummies for curses. Why don't you try actually learning about it all before you spout off beliefs you don't understand."

"I understand them plenty.'' Renata snaps back, and flounces out of the library as loudly as she can without annoying Madam Pince. The corridors are full on a miserable afternoon like this one, everyone shouting and laughing and jostling good naturedly.

She hates this school. Even after she's cut Tonks off, Avery and the other true believers call her a blood traitor. She's tainted by association to them, an unwitting traitor but a traitor all the same.

She doesn't miss Tonks and her tainted blood, but she misses the companionship. She misses having someone on her side. She's in a school with thousands of people and yet she feels as cold and small and alone as she ever had in Lestrange Manor.

A door cracked slightly ajar catches her eye. Renata doesn't stop to think twice before she slips inside and away from the bustling crowds. It feels even lonelier in the dusty little room, with the sound of all those carefree people hardly muffled by the door at all. She doesn't care, she tells herself, they're probably all mudbloods and blood traitors anway.

There is a moth-eaten chaise in the corner of the room, still draped in a soft, albeit somewhat musty throw. Renata isn't very big but the chaise is light enough. She drags it over to the window, where the drumming of the rain is louder than the noise of all the other people.

The sound is soothing, familiar from years of sitting in the great windowseats in Lestrange Manor, listening to the rain on bad days. It is so soothing, and so familiar in fact, that her head droops onto the back of the chaise, and her eyes flutter shut almost without her realising. She hardly notices when her attention turns away from the raindrops chasing each other down the windowpane and to the soft loops of light and colour that characterise the gentle, hazy sort of dream that takes one on the brink of sleep. 

She has no idea how long she stays there, drowsing lightly with the sound of the rain lulling her into a state of relaxation she hasn't felt since her falling out with Tonks. She only knows that all of a sudden, a gentle voice drops down into her dreams, stirring up eddies and currents that draw her to the surface of wakefulness. "Good afternoon, Miss Lestrange."

Renata sits bolt upright, nearly smashing the top of her head into the golden wire-rimmed spectacles floating above her head. She blinks several times, and the mass of white cloud behind the spectacles resolves into the gently smiling face of Albus Dumbledore. Her parents and grandfather hate him, she knows, but he must have mellowed since her parents were at Hogwarts because in their few encounters so far he has never been anything but nice to her. He offered her a sweet when he found her lost in her first week, and walked her to class himself.

She clears her throat a couple of times, sticky with sleep, before she can get anything out. "Good afternoon, Headmaster." She gets out eventually, frantically smoothing her rumpled hair and robes. 

The professor doesn't seem to notice her state of disarray, sitting down on a rickety looking desk with what she thinks is a smile behind his massed beard. "Is there any reason you chose this particular room for an afternoon nap, Miss Lestrange?" He asks, quietly but without any accusation in his voice the way Professor Snape or Mr Filch would have. 

Renata shrugs. "It was quiet." She mumbles in the general direction of her hands. "And I don't want to go to the dorm."

"Ah." He says wisely, something gentle and sad in his twinkling blue eyes. "Your argument with Miss Tonks, I take it?"

She blinks at him, trying with the half of her brain still working to stop her mouth flapping open like an idiot's. It doesn't work, and the headmaster just chuckles good naturedly. 

"You will find that I know a good deal of what happens in this school, Miss Lestrange. It is my job to take care of every child who comes under my authority, is it not?"

"It is, sir." She manages. 

"Excellent. Now," he settles himself more comfortably on the desk, "I have heard Miss Tonks's side of the quarrel, why don't you tell me yours?"

This too is entirely unlike the Dumbledore of her parents' stories and her grandfather's warning. He would never have heard a pureblood's side of the story if a mudblood summoned the requisite tears. Age must indeed have mellowed him. 

"She's a halfblood." Renata says, knowing as she does that he won't understand, being a blood traitor himself. "And she hid it from me. She let me think she was pure, when she's just an imposter and she doesn't even deserve to be in Hogwarts. I slept in the same bed as her."

"You think your parents will be disappointed?" The headmaster asks, offering her one of the same strange sweets as last time. The lemon sherbet was good, so Renata takes one with a murmured thanks. 

"Perhaps, " he says, looking thoughtful, "you will allow me to tell you the story of two boys I once knew?" He waits for Renata's reluctant nod to continue. "These two boys attended Hogwarts at the same time, both brilliant in their own ways, both halfbloods with one muggle parent, both with unhappy childhoods. They walked the same halls, sat in the same classes, spoke with the same people and heard the same whispers. One of them believed the same things that your parents did. He drove away his best friend because of it, and in the end his actions led to her death. The other chose to believe another side of the story. He became part of a charming, albeit perhaps over enthusiastic, group of friends who would have given the world for him. They learned a frankly staggering amount of rare and difficult magic on the off chance that it would allow them to ease his burdens. I have never seen such devoted friends."

The headmaster trails off, looking into the distance. Despite herself, Renata leans forward. "What happened to them, the friends?"

He starts a little, and then smiles down at her, so sadly that it almost makes her want to cry herself. "They died." He says simply. "In one way or another, through no fault of their own, those brilliant lives were snuffed out and the boy was left to continue his life alone."

"Well what's the point of picking a side then." Renata says, in a tone that she would call peevish were she not addressing her headmaster. "Both of them ended up alone and miserable like they began."

"But only one of them was happy in between." Dumbledore replies calmly. "I have found that a good deal of what makes me able to face the hard times is the memories which I made during happier times. Most, if not all, of the people who fought in the recent war would tell you the same thing, I believe."

Renata chews that over for few long moments. "You're saying I should be friends with Tonks again?" She bites out.

"I did not say that, did I?" The headmaster says, practically radiating innocence. "If friendship with your cousin is what brings you happiness, then by all means I encourage you to repair that friendship."

"But she's the daughter of a mudblood." Renata protests. Her skin crawls at the mere thought.

For the first time, Dumbledore's calm expression wavers. "Please do not use such language in my presence, Miss Lestrange." He says firmly, but before she can even shrink back, he is twinkling merrily at her again. "If you will permit me to venture my own opinion, I have found that often it is not their birth that defines people but their choices. Is it really so easy to tell muggleborn from pureblood at a single glance?"

"No." Renata admits. She hadn't known that Ambler was a mudblood until the brush had burned her, or that Cooper was one until she had told Renata so herself. She had thought that Tonks was the daughter of a powerful  pureblood, perhaps an American since she hadn't recognised the surname.

In fact, several people she had pegged as mudbloods had been purebloods, and several presumed purebloods had turned out to be mudbloods. Even Hagrid had been very kind and gentle the few times he had found her while she was lost. The second time he had even brought her into his little hut and given her tea and rather hard fudge. If it weren't for his size she would have thought him rather ordinary and soft.

Dumbledore beams at her as if she has done something wonderful. "Well, on that we are agreed. Some of the brightest pupils I have ever had the privilege of knowing were Muggleborn. Have you heard of Lily Evans?"

"No." Renata says, not bothering to think. She won't know any mudbloods by name, they aren't worth it. Although she knows Cooper, and Ambler, and Tonks's father is called Ted. Three mudbloods then. But as a general rule, no, she doesn't bother knowing of them.

"Most likely not." Dumbledore doesn't seem concerned. "She was the mother of Harry Potter - yes, I see you know that name. She was a Muggleborn, and the most brilliant witch I have ever had the honour to meet. It was she who stopped Lord Voldemort in 1981, at the cost of her own life."

Renata feels her jaw drop open. She never heard what happened the night that the Dark Lord vanished - only that her parents hadn't believed he was dead, and that Harry Potter had something to do with it.

"A mud-muggleborn defeated the Dark Lord?" She says at last. "Killed him? The greatest wizard ever to live?"

Dumbledore smiles blandly "I would contest that particular title, but yes. It was Lily who harnessed magic which even I do not quite understand, in order to protect her child."

"But she wasn't even a halfblood?"

"Not a drop of magical blood in her veins."

"Oh."

"She was an incredible woman." Dumbledore says gently. "Your Prefect Cooper reminds me of her sometimes."

The Dark Lord, the head of their crusade, defeated by a mudblood? Weren't purebloods supposed to be better? Superior?

"I think I will leave you to your thoughts." The headmaster says, after she has sat in silence for at least three minutes. "Should you wish to continue our conversation, my door is always open."

And he is gone.

Renata looks down at her hands. She was born with six fingers, she remembers her uncle telling her. The sixth one was removed when she was three hours old and she cannot even tell where it would have been. Everyone she knows has a story like that, born wrong in some way - sometimes in ways even magic cannot fix.

Everyone except Tonks. Tonks had shrugged when she had been asked. "My hair changed colour and Mum thought someone had stolen her baby and replaced it with someone else's?" She had said, asking if that was what Renata had meant.

She wonders if Cooper would be similarly confused by such a question.That night, when she and Tonks are lying in stony silence in their adjoining beds (Sharpe had refused to swap with either of them, and Ambler would have been even worse), Renata can't help thinking about how easily Tonks changes her hair.

Aunt Narcissa had only ever been able to change the colour slowly and with great thought. But Tonks could do it in the blink of an eye, hardly thinking about it at all. She did it unconsciously sometimes.

She wishes, briefly, that Mother was there to talk to. Then she thinks it through, and wishes that Father was there instead. He wasn't as fond of her as Mother was but he had always been the better one to go to with questions. Neither of them would have liked this one, she thinks.

It's a moot point, anyway. Neither of them are here. She looked it up in the Hogwarts library after her conversation with Dumbledore. Grandfather had always told her that the people they had hurt had deserved it. The Longbottoms had been Healers, and hadn't even been doing that after they had a baby. Both of them had been purebloods, both of them multiple generations pure. And her parents had tortured them until their minds broke. Now they live in the St Mungo's permanent spell damage ward, and their son is growing up alone in their big empty house with his grandmother.

She wonders if his grandmother remembers he exists. Does he also wander dusty halls alone and play with his reflections in the enchanted mirrors? Does he see people beside his grandmother and the elves? Does he even remember his parents putting him to bed at night, and playing with him, and loving him?

Renata's mouth opens. "Tonks?"

The room goes still. Even Ambler and Sharpe's shuffling around behind their curtains stops. Renata could swear she can hear the near imperceptible humming of the wards. Tonks is silent for so long that Renata thinks she won't answer. But then, at last, there is a curt, "What?"

"Have you been in the Muggle world?"

Silence. If it was possible for the room to go stiller, it would have done so.

"Yes."

"Is it...do-" Renata trails off. She swallows, hard, and tries again. She's committed to this now. "What's it like?"

The curtains on Tonks's bed are ripped apart, followed quickly by Renata's own. Tonks climbs into her bed and shuts the curtains behind her. "You mean it?" She asks, hair bleeding pink.

Renata tries not to twist her hands in the bedclothes. She shrugs. "I talked to Sharpe, or Sharpe talked to me, and then Professor Dumbledore showed up and I went to the library to see what my parents did and that isn't...I can't be proud of that. I thought they did something brave and noble. I thought they made a sacrifice. I was told they were heroes but they, that's-" Her voice cuts off.

She knows how terrible it is to grow up in a grand, empty house with parents neither alive nor dead and a grandparent closer to dead than alive. How could her parents do that to a child? At least she has memories of them. Neville Longbottom has none.

A warm, soft arm slips around her shoulders. "I knew you'd come round." Tonks says softly. "You're too Hufflepuff to think what they did was right. You know what's fair, even when they tell you the wrong thing."

"It's hard, going against what your parents think." Sharpe butts in, pale eyes gleaming in the darkness as she stands in the gap of Renata's curtains.

Renata is silent. She doesn't agree with the other girls yet, and presumably Ambler knows that or she wouldn't stay silent. That's alright. Renata doesn't want to hear Ambler speak yet. But she doesn't- no one should have to grow up like she did. Her parents were wrong to do that. What else were they wrong about?

"Anyway, if we're friends again, you should call me Dora." Tonks continues. Her free arm comes up to join her other arm about Renata's shoulders. She is warm and soft and bright, and for the first time in weeks Renata doesn't feel like she's freezing from the inside out. For that alone, she thinks, she'd be friends with Dora again. 

Chapter Text

"Hey!" A voice shouts after her in the corridors the next day. "Hey, Lestrange!" 

Renata purses her lips and keeps walking. Her cousin's arm tightens in her own arm. It isn't the first time someone left orphaned by her parents has happened on her in the corridor. It is, however the first time that she cannot in all honesty say that they had what was coming to them. Her parents tortured a young couple into madness for no reason at all. Who is to say what they have and haven't done? 

"Lestrange!" The voice comes again, followed by hasty footsteps echoing on the stairs behind them. Renata slips her arm out of Dora's and turns around. Best to get it over with. 

The shouter is a boy a year or so ahead of them, one of the pretty boys that has half of the older girls sighing after him with his tousled head of golden waves and bright blue eyes. Standing as they are a few steps above him, Renata's own eyes are level with those pretty eyes. 

"You dropped this." He says, holding out her Potions textbook. His smile isn't warm, but it's there and she cannot see any of the disgust in his eyes that strikes her to the bone no matter how much she pretends it doesn't matter. For a moment she just stares at him, entirely confused. His smile doesn't waver, but it grows strained the longer she stares dumbly at him. 

Dora elbows her before the silence can stretch out long enough to be unrecoverably awkward. Renata jumps, and tentatively takes the book from him. She tries her best to return the smile. "Thanks." She whispers. 

He smiles back at her, and turns away with a friendly wave. Renata looks down at the book in her hands as he descends the stairs back to his group of chattering friends. It is pristine, just as it was when she shoved it carelessly into the top of her bag this morning. No rips or scrapes, not even any scuffs from its fall - he must have repaired it before handing it back to her. 

*************

It's quiet after she and Dora make up, but a good kind of quiet. Ambler still stays away from her, which is fair enough - Renata still isn't sure if she wants to be near Ambler in the first place. She wants to know more about Muggles before she decides who is right. Sharpe seems to find it satisfactory enough though. She stops poking Renata, and the incident in the library appears to be forgotten. 

Partway through December, a letter arrives from Grandfather. He is unwell, and does not think he will be able to adequately provide for her over the Yule holidays so she shall stay at school until term begins again. Renata shouldn't be surprised, she thinks. She knows Grandfather is old and she knows that he isn't well, and she knows that he struggles to care for her properly. 

But she sits on her bed and watches as the other three girls pack their trunks, laughing and chattering without a care in the world. They all have plans upon plans for the holidays. What plans does Renata have? Complete all of her homework and wander around the castle the way she would otherwise be wandering around the manor? Yes, that sounds diverting in the extreme. She tries very hard not to be jealous but she doesn't think she suceeds. 

"What's wrong, Ren?" Dora asks her, pausing with an armload of unfolded clothes she's in the process of shoving haphazardly into her trunk. "Aren't you packing?"

"I'm not going home." Renata replies quietly, and looks back down at her book. It's something about the Elder Futhark alphabet, she thinks, but she doesn't understand it very much. She'll read it again after everyone is gone. 

Dora is silent for a moment. Then she dumps her armful of clothes down, and comes to sit by Renata. Her voice, when she speaks, is gentle. "Does your grandfather not want you back?"

"He wants me to have a good holiday, and he doesn't think he can give me that." Renata keeps her voice as level as she can, but Dora's eyes are knowing. 

She wraps one arm around Renata's shoulders. "Come and stay with us for Christmas then," she says cheerfully, "Mum and Dad won't mind, and we can show you the Muggle world so you can have help making up your mind on Muggles and all that. Yeah?"

"Get your parents' permission before extending invites to their house, Dora." Renata scolds her cousin, but she feels warmer inside, and her smile feels easier. 

Dora writes off to her parents that very day, and at breakfast the next morning, an owl duly returns with the reply. 

Darling, writes the letter's author in a familiar hand - very like the hand Renata's mother uses, that had been rigidly taught to her by her tutors. This must be her Aunt Andromeda's hand. 

Of course Renata may stay with us for the Christmas holidays, provided that she wants to and it is not you bulldozing her into it. We will open the spare bedroom for her. 

See you in three days, sweetheart. 

With love,

Mum

So Renata packs her trunk and sits with Dora on the Hogwarts Express back to London. It is a nice ride, far better than the ride up to Scotland. The train is still so loud that she thinks she might burst into tears, but she's somewhat more used to it after eating in the Great Hall three times every day. And she has Dora with her. It's nice to have a friend with her, so nice that the train journey positively flies by. 

Almost before she realises that they have set off, the train is pulling into the station, and they are jumping off and wading through the crowds to find Dora's parents. 

Renata's Aunt Andromeda is a tall, handsome woman with the same wild curls and hooded eyes as Mother. The sight of her sends a sharp pang through Renata. She has never envied Dora more than when her cousin gets swept up into a warm hug and peppered with kisses. Dora squirms and complains and grumbles, and Renata could strangle her for it - doesn't she know how lucky she is? 

"You must be Renata." Comes a warm, jolly voice. The man from which it comes is as tall as Andromeda, but not so slender. He's already balding and a little heavier than he should be, but he's smiling broadly down at her. 

She shakes the extended hand with as warm of a smile as she can manage. Her skin crawls at the touch of someone she knows is a mudblood, but she does her best not to show it. "Yes." She gets out, trying not to wipe her hand off on her robes. 

His smile hardly flickers. "I guess you don't want to call me Uncle Ted yet," he says as blithely as if he has not noticed the internal war tearing her apart, or her mother's disgusted screams ringing in her ears, "but you can call me Ted if you can manage it." He looks like a Ted. She will give him that. 

Then Dora is flinging herself at her father, and Aunt Andromeda is standing in front of Renata. "Good afternoon, Renata." Her aunt's voice isn't much like her mother's. It's too soft. More like Grandmother Druella's, or maybe Aunt Narcissa's. "I hope you had a pleasant journey?"

"Very pleasant, thank you ma'am." Renata replies as politely as she can. "Thank you for your hospitality over the holidays. It is much appreciated." 

Her aunt smiles. It's not the same smile that she had given to Dora, but it's warm and kind, and Renata thinks that if she squinted it might look like her mother's on the rare occasion that Bellatrix Lestrange had been calm and gentle. She doesn't squint. "You are very welcome." She holds out one elegant gloved hand, and Renata latches on. "Dora has told us so much about you that I feel I know you already, but that is a foolish assumption. Tell me about yourself, dear."

As they walk out of the station, Renata can hear Dora chattering away to Ted Tonks. She listens with half an ear as she tells Andromeda about her home and Socks and Ophiuchus and everything she can think of. It's nice, having an adult's undivided attention. It makes her feel like she matters to someone. 

When they turn into a little alley to Apparate to the Tonkses' house, Aunt Andromeda wraps one arm tightly about Renata. She didn't have to. She could have just had Renata keep holding onto her hand. But instead she draws Renata close and holds her tight. Just like when Dora hugs her, Renata can feel the ice in her bones melting in that tight embrace. 

They vanish with a crack, and reappear in the tiniest house Renata has ever seen. It is a semi-detached terrace in a Muggle neighbourhood, or at least that is what Dora had told her. It has only one spare bedroom, of which she is the recipient for the duration of the Christmas holidays - and they call it Christmas, not Yule. That throws her off a bit. 

There are no elves in the house - Aunt Andromeda and her husband take turns cleaning the house and cooking, and even Dora has to wash dishes and tidy her room. There are no portraits either, nor any magical pictures whatsoever. Dora laughs so hard she has to sit down the first time she catches Renata trying to start a conversation with the mirrors. 

"They're just mirrors, Ren." She says in between giggles. "Not everyone wants unsolicited opinions on their appearance whenever they pass a mirror." 

It's strange, but not in a bad way. The television is definitely not bad. It is like a portrait, but with many people and with music and a story instead of just boring lectures. One of the first movies that she sees is a story called the Christmas Carol, told by creatures known as Muppets. She doesn't quite understand what is happening, but it is addictive. She likes watching the rats run around, and the funny creatures singing is...she thinks she likes it. She doesn't understand the relationship between these things and the Muggle actors, but it's fun anyway. 

They go out into the Muggle world sometimes, and it is Ted who takes the lead on these excursions. They go to the Christmas markets, which have such tiny bright lights strung everywhere, and are riddled with such sweet smells that Renata is convinced for some time that it is a magic market. It takes Ted explaining 'electricity' to her, and showing her where the delicate strings of lights are attached to the living lightning before she concedes. They buy a little glass ornament for the tree that stands in the corner of the little living room, an orb with a tiny reindeer inside it. Renata doesn't understand how it got there without magic. She is starting to wonder why they need magic at all if Muggles are capable of such wonders without it. 

Then they go ice skating, indoors in reasonable temperatures without needing Warming Charms. The ice is smooth and perfect, with none of the bumps that she is used to on the lake at home. Dora falls over half a dozen times, of which the last four happen because she is trying to keep up with Renata who used to skate almost every day in the winter time - it's not like she had ever had much else to do. 

On Christmas Eve, they take her to midnight mass at the local parish church. It's still and quiet and beautiful, and Renata doesn't understand exactly what Christmas is about but she likes it. It's beautiful. She doesn't know the songs, and the wavering candlelight makes it difficult to read the sheet, but they sound otherworldly even in the dim, cold little church. 

It's much better than Yule at home, where Grandfather lights a log if he remembers, and the elves make a great feast that neither Grandfather nor Renata can eat half of. It's cosier, warmer, and not so lonely. She's almost sorry when the holidays are over and they have to go back to Hogwarts. 

************

"I owe you an apology." Renata says to Ambler, halfway through January. She had been getting sideways looks from Dora about it ever since they got back to Hogwarts, but she doesn't want to make an insincere apology. It's taken her several weeks to decide that yes, she does agree with Dora enough to apologise to Ambler because whether she was right or not her actions were cruel. And whether Ambler is lesser or not, treating her as such is unbefitting of a Hufflepuff. She's supposed to be fair. 

Ambler looks at her with cold eyes, level and flat enough that she must have learned the look from Sharpe. One eyebrow raises expectantly. She folds her arms and waits. 

"I called you some terrible things." Renata begins slowly. "I didn't know any better, but that isn't any excuse. I parroted beliefs that were wrong and I thought that hurting people for being born was right. It isn't. I don't...I can't say I agree with the other side yet, but I don't agree with the Dark Lord anymore."

"That's a terrible apology." Ambler says. "But it'll do. Call me Ellen." She smiles and holds out her hand to Renata. "Nice to meet you, dorm mate." 

They shake hands. Renata's skin only crawls a little bit. The ice in her bones doesn't make a resurgence. She doesn't manage a proper smile, but Ambler manages one for both of them. It feels...she still feels like she's betraying her parents, and grandfather. But she doesn't want to be lonely anymore. And none of them are there to be disappointed in her. 

So she calls Ambler Ellen, and sits with her and Dora and Marjorie Sharpe at meal times. She apologises to Cooper as well, who is cold for another week or so and then returns to helping Renata with her homework. She answers questions about the Muggle world as well, when Renata manages to bring herself to ask them. 

And so, the rest of her first year goes. It is much less difficult than the first term had been. She has Dora now, and Ellen and Marjorie, and Alice Cooper is always there to check how she is doing. She hasn't had so many people care about her wellbeing since Mother, Father and Uncle Rabastan left. And yes, it is left, because no one made them torture the Longbottoms, and if they hadn't then they could have stayed with Renata. 

She doesn't think about that very often though, because it makes her angry and tearful by turns and she hates it. She almost wishes that she had never had that dreadful conversation with the Headmaster, but then she wouldn't have had Dora. Dora makes up for an awful lot. 

The year ends well, she thinks. Dora does brilliantly, Renata comes only two places behind her, with Marjorie hot on her heels, and Ellen is ahead of them all. Somehow, Renata isn't even surprised. That is progress, she thinks. 

Alice Cooper is very proud of her, and brings her back a bar of Honeydukes chocolate after her results are out. "You did good, kid." She says easily. "Really good." The approval warms Renata right down to her toes.

It's a wonderful ending to her first year at Hogwarts. 

Chapter Text

Renata Floos home from the platform very reluctantly that summer. She knows that her behavior will have disappointed her grandfather. She spent the Yule holidays celebrating Christmas with her disowned aunt and Mudblood uncle-in-law.

She expects anger, disappointment, cold distance, anything but what she actually finds which is confusion.

Her grandfather doesn't even recognise the name Andromeda except to say, 'a Black then? A good family, loyal to the cause you know. Well done Renata."

Then he locks himself back into his study, saying that he has funds to arrange for their Lord.

Renata stands in the corridor staring at the closed door, feeling very small and cold all of a sudden. He hadn't even hugged her after almost a year apart. Then again, she isn't sure he knows how long it's been.

She isn't sure he knows much of anything anymore.

When she goes upstairs, she finds her room musty and full of dust and cobwebs. Even just opening the door sets her sneezing fit to wake the dead. There's no point trying to get her trunk into her room now.

She calls for Pipsy to air out her room and adjust the menu for two, knowing that Grandfather won't have remembered, before heading to the library. It is as filthy and uncared for as her bedroom.

When she makes for the rest of the house, after setting Flippy to clean the library, she finds it in much the same state. It is as if she has returned to a haunted manor, her grandfather just another specter in the derelict ruin.

Was it like this before? Or have the elves withdrawn entirely from the upstairs in self-preservation? If Grandfather doesn't even remember that she shouldn't be associating with Andromeda Black, he definitely won't remember the Ministry's restrictions on the treatment of elves.

There are indeed two more heads mounted on the wall when she goes to check, which doesn't surprise her. Well, as long as they keep her room and the library livable, and she gets three meals a day, she doesn't really care what they do or don't do with the rest of the house. It's Grandfather who has to live here all year round, not her.

Apart from letters to Dora and suppers with Grandfather she spends her entire holiday in the library, on the Quidditch pitch (now hardly distinguishable from the surrounding undergrowth), or in the lake.

There are two letters from Ellen sent care of Dora, one from Marjorie, and one from Alice Cooper.

She keeps all of the letters hidden in her bedside table and chews dozens of quills to ribbons in trying to make her replies sound like she is having a fun and lively summer.

When it comes time for her to return to Hogwarts, she gets Grandfather to authorise her to make withdrawals from the Lestrange vault and goes to Diagon herself.

It doesn't make her feel any better, watching all of the families buying their school supplies and quarreling over the nicest quills and flavours of ice cream. It just makes her feel lonelier, and the cold, hard, little core of something inside her hardens further.

She is so very glad to get onto the Hogwarts Express, and fling herself into Dora's arms. Her cousin's embrace seems to drive the cold right out of her all at once, the feeling so intense that she starts crying.

The tears dry up somewhere around Birmingham, much to Dora and Ellen's relief, and Marjorie's disgust. She spends the rest of the journey playing Exploding Snap and trading Chocolate Frogs and revelling in the sensation of being wanted.

She is wanted, she reminds herself firmly. Her parents had wanted her and loved her so much, it isn't their fault they are locked up in Azkaban, and it isn't Grandfather's fault that his mind is all tumbled and out of order.The thought doesn't help much, so she puts all such thoughts of her family entirely out of her head and resolves to enjoy the train ride.

She does, right up until they step into the castle again and the warm, golden magic washes over her and she finally feels at home again after that awful, lonely summer.

The realisation makes her cry all over again, so hard that she can't get any words out. It gets Dora so frantic that she sends Marjorie to get Professor Sprout.

Professor Sprout bundles them into her office, which is cosy and cluttered and smells like green, growing things. She clucks over Renata and gives her a cup of hot chocolate and a blanket, and tells her to take her time.

When Renata finally manages to choke out that she just had a really lonely summer, she sees something soften and warm in her head of house's gentle eyes. "It's alright, dearie." Professor Sprout says, tucking an arm around Renata's shoulders. "You're home now."

She misses the Sorting because she is sent to bed early. In the morning, Professor Sprout comes over when she starts crying again at breakfast, and sends her to Madam Pomfrey who finds that Renata is perfectly healthy, just overwhelmed after a quiet, lonely summer. 

It takes a few weeks, but by Halloween she has adjusted and is chattering as merrily as anyone else. She and Dora both go to tryouts for the Hufflepuff team - Dora fails miserably, being as clumsy in the air as she is on the land, but Renata does well enough that she gets into the final three for Keeper. It's a fun experience, and the captain says that Renata can come back to try out next year if she wants. 

Marjorie had showed up to laugh at them both, and Ellen had loyally tried to cheer them both on until the fourth time Dora had flown into another player. After that, she had just sat with one hand over her eyes, shoulders shaking. When Renata treks up to the stands to the other two girls, she realises that it was laughter, not tears as she had thought. "Why, Ellen Ambler." She exclaims. "How heartless. I never would have thought it of you."

Ellen keeps laughing, and Marjorie shakes her head at the lot of them as Dora clamours to be let in on the joke. 

The first term speeds by, and almost before they know it, Professor Sprout is bringing around the sign up sheets to stay at the castle. Dora forestalls Renata before she can even reach for a quill. "You're staying with us again for Christmas, you know that right?" She asks.

When Renata just nods instead of trying to speak around the lump in her throat, Dora's hair goes neon green and staticky with excitement. It even lets off sparks, until Jenkins, who was sitting on the next armchair over, shouts in horror as one of the sparks sets a fire to his Charms essay. 

************

Christmas with the Tonkses is no less magical the second time than the first. They go to a pantomime this year. Renata doesn't quite understand why a middle-aged man is dressed up as a woman on stage, nor why shouting at the actors is encouraged and even accounted for in the script. She enjoys it nonetheless. It's loud, true, but there's a good humoured, common fun to it that she thinks her parents would hate. For once, that thought sends only the faintest pang of guilt through her. She has a life to live, doesn't she? Wouldn't they want her to live it as best she can?

They go to midnight mass at the local parish again on Christmas Eve. It's just as beautiful as last year, just as still and sacred feeling. Renata even recognises some of the songs this year, not just from last year's service but also from the radio that Uncle Ted has kept on almost the whole holiday. She can't quite sing them confidently, but she doesn't have to mumble the words either. 

Besides, next to Uncle Ted's well-intended bawling, no one's going to hear if she gets a note or two wrong. Dora spends most of the service in a fit of giggles at her father's enthusiastic singing.

Aunt Andromeda gives her a photo album for Christmas. It has magical copies of what must be enough photographs to cover Aunt Andromeda's entire childhood right up until she eloped with Uncle Ted. The first one is of a tiny toddler with wild curls holding a newborn baby, and grinning widely at the camera. When Renata starts to cry, Aunt Andromeda just wraps one arm about Renata and holds her until the tears stop. 

Renata misses her mother so much. 

There are differences between Mother and Aunt Andromeda. Aunt Andromeda is quieter, steadier, warmer. She's less prone to shrieks and noise and curses - less prone to extravagant displays of affection true, but equally less prone to forgetting Renata exists in favour of whatever has caught her attention. Her eyes are a lighter brown, her hair closer to teak than ebony, and she has smile lines forming about her eyes. She smells different too, like parchment and fresh linen and flowers, instead of blood and ash and metal.

It throws Renata sometimes. Aunt Andromeda is so different to Mother.

And yet, in some ways, there is no difference at all. It is the closest she has been to her mother since she was seven years old.

**************

Once they get back to Hogwarts, they have to pick their electives. Renata picks Arithmancy and Runes straight off, and considers adding Muggle Studies for ten minutes before she realises that her grandfather would get a letter about her choices like every guardian does. Keeping her Christmas visits with the Tonkses from him is easy enough, even if it leaves a pit in her stomach, but he can still read no matter how much his mind has gone. 

She takes Care with Dora instead. Dora picks Runes so they'll be in two of the same classes, and then Divination because she's heard the professor is a crazy old bat and is curious. Marjorie sniffs disgustedly at Dora's blase handling of her future, and Ellen just despairs of them all. 

The rest of second year flies by, and before Renata realises it, she is on the train back to Lestrange Manor. It is even dustier than it was last summer, and she's fairly sure the cracks in the walls are getting concerning - but what can a thirteen year old do about it? 

She makes sure to eat supper with Grandfather every evening so that she knows he's eating at least once a day. Conversation is stilted, and she finds herself having to edit almost the entirety of her life at school which makes her appetite vanish down the pit of guilt that opens in her stomach, but they manage to keep it going. Once he finds out she's taking Runes, he even gets excited enough to spend a day with her in the manor's library teaching her the basics. 

The rest of the summer though, she spends pretty much alone. The elves bring breakfast to her room in the mornings, she amuses herself until lunch, and amuses herself again until supper time, after which she gets ready for bed and reads until her eyes close of their own volition. 

She keeps up correspondence with her friends, which is harder than it sounds when she has nothing to write about, flies on the almost indistinguishable Quidditch pitch, does her homework, and reads whatever she can get her hands on in the library. Grandfather signs her Hogsmeade consent form when it arrives, but that takes only ten minutes of the seemingly interminable summer.

By the third week, she's bored and lonely enough to wander down to the kitchens. The elves are much shyer than the year before, having most likely been on the recieving end of Grandfather's temper over the last year, but Pipsy requires only a miniscule amount of coaxing before agreeing to teach her how to make a sandwich. Then tea. Then a cake. And so on and so forth, until by the end of summer she's having daily cooking lessons from Pipsy, who is rather proud of her. 

She gets onto the Hogwarts express for her third year with a basket full of things she baked entirely by herself. Between them, Marjorie, Ellen, Dora and herself only get through about half of the basket. It's a little hard giving out free baked goods to other students when one is the daughter of a notorious mass murderer, but Prefect Cooper (now Head Girl Cooper) takes an armful for her friends, and Jenkins doesn't even hesitate. 

"Thank you, Lestrange." He says, aiming that infamous devastating smile at her as he helps himself liberally from the basket. "These look delicious. Did you make these?"

Renata nods. "Pipsy taught me all of it, but this batch I made by myself."

"Pipsy?" He asks through a mouthful of chocolate cake.

"My house elf." She says. "I ended up in the kitchens a lot over the summer, and Pipsy put me to work. I learned a lot.''

That smile is turned on her again. "You learned fast then, these are better than the ones my mum makes. Do you think you could make more while we're at school?"

"Show me where the kitchens are and I'll think about it." Renata returns, knowing very well that Jenkins has made friends with the Hogwarts house elves. 

"Deal." He says, and they shake on it. She turns to leave, but not before he steals one more muffin out of her basket with a wink. Renata doesn't stop him - she has to get rid of her excess baked goods somehow.