Christmas of 1994
Carina quickly checked that she was fully packed, it was only for a couple of nights so she didn't have to be extensive with what she was bringing. Madame Maxine had granted her permission to leave Hogwarts for a couple days to join her uncle for Yule and in exactly 30 minutes she had to be in Dumbledore's office so that she could travel to Grimmauld Place via the Floo Network, the Hogwarts express was not running due to the majority of students wishing to remain at Hogwarts for the Tournament.
Once she was satisfied that she had collected everything, Carina left her room and cast a quick charm on it, locking it so that only no one could enter until she undid the charm. Quickly, she made her way into Fleur's room to say goodbye before she left and to give Fleur the present that she had bought her for Yule. It was a book on the constellations as she had promised to teach Fleur more about astronomy. Like most members of the Black family, Carina had an exceptional knowledge of the stars and planets, she found solace in them, often talking to the sky when she knew that no one would understand, she knew that somehow they would. She herself was named after a constellation too, apparently her mother had decided to keep up the name tradition of her father's side, instead of giving her a flower name as was the Selwyn family tradition. Despite loving her name, Carina sometimes wished that her mother had continued their family tradition, not being named after a flower made her feel even more distant from her mother's side of the family than she was.
Carina knocked on Fleur's door and within a couple of seconds it swung open and Fleur launched herself into Carina's arms.
"Tu vas me manquer, j'aimerais que tu restes. Mais hélas, tu m'abandonnes." ("I am going to miss you, I wish that you were staying. But alas, you are abandoning me.")
"Ce n'est que pour quelques jours, je reviendrai dans quelques jours de toute façon." ("It is only for a few days, I will be back a couple days anyway.")
Carina pulled away from the hug and handed Fleur her gift. "Joyeux Noël ! J'espère que ça vous plaira. Dites-moi ce que vous en pensez à mon retour." ("Happy Yule! I hope that you like it, let me know what you think of it when I return.")
"Merci beaucoup. Tiens," ("Thank you so much. Here,") Fleur reached into her pocket and pulled out a small parcel, she handed it to Carina, a grin plastered on her her stunning face. "J'espère que ça vous plaira." ("I hope that you like it.")
The two best friends said their final goodbyes to one another and then Carina left the room to make her way to Dumbledore's office. She made her way quickly through the castle, truth be told she could not fail to notice its beauty, with tall walls made of grey stone and long staircases that stretched for what seemed like miles, it was an exceptionally stunning building. She also did not fail to notice how people avoided her, they all scattered like scared insects whenever she came near. Although she knew of the reputation that she had cultivated for herself throughout the years, it still made her feel a tad bit melancholy that people always seemed to assume the worst about her, what was the point of being nice to everyone when they automatically assumed that she was going to be horrible to them.
After several minutes of walking around the castle, she arrived outside the Headmaster's office and was horrified at the sight that met her outside. Standing around the magnificent statue was her father and his stupid gang of friends, not to mention his irritable daughters and Harry Potter.
"Ah, there you are, we were worried that you weren't coming."
"I am not, I am going to see my uncle. Is it not perfectly clear that I want nothing to do with any of you, or are all of you so damn incompetent that you are unable to see that. If so, which is exceptionally likely, I hope that my previous words made it clear enough that my life would be much happier if I never saw any of your faces again."
"Didn't Regulus tell you?" James asked, he could sense that his best friend was about to burst out into tears at his daughter's cruel words.
"Tell me what you imbecile."
"You and Regulus are to spend Christmas with us this year, we did not receive a response after we sent you a letter and so we sent one to him and he accepted."
The last part was not entirely true, they had not received a response from her, but they knew it was not because of some kind of mix up and it was instead because she had burned the letter into oblivion. They neglected to mention this though, in the hope that she would give them the benefit of the doubt.
Just as she was about to reply with a cutting remark, Carina saw he uncle exiting Dumbledore's office and she decided to direct her rage at him.
"Sag mir, dass es nicht wahr ist." ("Tell me it isn't true".)
"Carina-"
"Nein, ich kann dir nicht glauben. Ich habe dir ausdrücklich gesagt, dass ich mit dieser Idiotenfamilie nichts zu tun haben will. Ich werde nicht gehen, du kannst mich nicht dazu zwingen." ("No, I cannot believe you, I specifically told you that I did not want anything to do with this family of fools. I will not go, you cannot make me.")
"Bitte Carina, ich will nur dein Bestes. Ich denke, das wird gut sein, du kannst deinen Vater kennenlernen und endlich richtig mit ihm sprechen. Du hast die Chance, seine Familie kennenzulernen. Bitte Carina, weigere dich nicht, hinzugehen, denn du wirst es unweigerlich bereuen." ("Please Carina, I just want what is best for you. I think this will be good, you can meet your father and finally get to speak to him properly. You will have the chance to get to know his family. Please Carina, do not refuse to go because you will inevitably regret it.")
"What the actual fuck are you both saying?" Harry asked.
"Language!" Lily warned but her tone was warm and genuine so Carina got the impression that she did not really care all that much about her son's use of such vulgarities.
"We are speaking in German you puerile fool." Carina snapped back at him, she pondered Regulus's words before finally conceding, "Gut, aber erwarten Sie nicht, dass ich Ihnen eine angenehme Gesellschaft bin." ("Fine, but do not expect me to be pleasant company.")
They all made their way up the staircase and into Dumbledore's office, where he greeted them all with a smile that made Carina sick, she hated people like that - people who pretended to be kind when in reality they were most likely horrible and sly.
All of her father's despicable family formed a line in front of the fireplace and each took it in turns to take a handful of Floo Powder and utter the words "Potter Manor" before disappearing into a cloud of green flames. Finally, it was Carina's turn and she took the Floo Powder reluctantly uttered the dreaded words before she too was engulfed in green flames.
Carina stepped out of the fireplace and observed her surroundings. The house was homely, warm, with a variety of colour and life to it. The floor was decorated with red and gold rugs and a light brown wooden flooring. It was by no means a small house to, but despite its great size, it had a comfortable feel to it. However, Carina hated it, no she despised it, it was too bright, too happy, quite frankly it made her feel nauseous just looking at it. She massively preferred the look of Grimmuald Place, despite being full of greys and blacks, it provided a sense of comfort, a sense of familiarity that at that specific moment Carina craved desperately.
"Carina," she turned at the sound of her name to see Lily Potter calling over to her, "come with me. I can show you where you will be sleeping."
Carina glanced at Regulus who in tern gave her a stern look, one that warned her to be civil, and the she made her way reluctantly and followed Lily Potter out of the room. As she was doing so, she made a silent vow, she vowed to be completely silent when spoken to, unless of course she was speaking to Regulus, as she knew that she could not punish her uncle. She had been forced to come here and there was no way that she would be pleasant to be around because if Carina Walburga Black was one thing, she was petty, and remarkably so. She had no intention of making any effort to make these fools like her, let them despise her, she truly could not care less what any of these imbeciles thought of her, she was Carina Walburga Black the Pureblood Princess and in her mind, they were a group of good for nothing idiots that plagued her very existence like an irritating mosquito.
"So Carina what subjects do you like at school? I don't know much about Beauxbatons but I can imagine that it can't be that different from Hogwarts."
Carina gave no response, in truth this woman had done absolutely nothing to harm her in away, except of course the obvious connection with her father, and in her mind that was punishable enough. It disgusted her that they all pretended like all of this was normal, like it was an average experience, that her father's blatant neglect for her was nothing out of the ordinary. They had no right to try and be kind to her, after all a few kind words her and there could not make up for 15 years worth of disappointment.
"Here's your room. There is a bathroom at the side through that door. If you need anything do not hesitate to ask, we are all very happy that you are here Carina and we look forward to having you stay with us. Hopefully, this is something that will happen more often." Lily told her warmly.
Again Carina gave no response and left the smiling woman slightly downhearted. Instead she entered the room. It was pleasant enough she supposed, with bright brown floors, red rugs and a set of red and gold curtains covering the bay window that sat at the opposite end of the room, it was hardly ugly. But, there was something off about it, like the rest of the Potters' house, it was too happy, too bright, it made her miss Grimmauld Place even more than ever. She wanted to be back home, she missed the familiarity of it, she missed waking up to silence, she missed Kreacher, at that moment, Carina wanted nothing more than to be back at home.
"Is she settling in okay?" Regulus asked Lily almost the moment that she came downstairs.
"She is fine, she seemed quite silent though. I tried to make conversation with her but she didn't see very interesting."
"She is probably quite overwhelmed, we should give her space."
Unable to help himself Regulus raised his eyebrows at the last remark.
"What?" Sirius asked him, it came out snarkier than her originally intended it.
"Nothing really, I just forgot myself for a moment."
"No you clearly wanted to say something, so come on, speak your truth and let us be done with it."
"With Carina, don't expect her to be civil in any way. I love that girl more than anything, but she is the pettiest person that I have ever met and currently she more than likely despises us for forcing her to be here. She won't be nice to anyone right now, not even me, so you can give her space all you want but I doubt that at this current moment in time it will do you any favours."
"So you think I should try and talk to her."
"No, that would most definitely be the worst thing to do."
Regulus left them shortly after that and as soon as he had left he breathed a sigh of relief. It felt strange to have a somewhat normal conversation with his brother, he could barely remember the last time that had properly happened. Perhaps it was before Sirius had left for Hogwarts and been sorted into Gryffindor, back then the brothers were so close, but now they were worlds apart from one another.
It was Christmas morning and Carina awoke with a heavy heart, she hated being here more than she thought that she could ever hate anything. She didn't even celebrate Christmas, raised in proper Pureblood fashion she was raised celebrating Yule instead.
She took more time than was necessary to get herself ready, she made sure to look as flawless as she could, she refused to let these irritable people know that they had an effect on her, she would look the same as she did everyday and that was complete perfection.
By the time she made her way downstairs, everybody else was already sat at the table eating breakfast and chatting amiably among themselves. As she entered, Carina felt all the eyes in the room staring at her, waiting for her to say something. She refused to break her silence and didn't utter a single word. While taking her place at the table, she noticed a couple people that she had not met before. One was a woman with short blonde hair, who was joking with Lily. Another was a woman with curly black hair who sat opposite the blonde one. And finally one was a woman with braids who sat next to the blonde one and from what she could tell, Carina assumed that they were probably a couple. This woman was also chatting to Regulus and from what she could remember, her uncle had a friend at school called Dorcas who looked something like this woman, and she wondered if perhaps it was.
"Was everything okay with your room?"
She looked up to see her father looking at her with a hopeful expression on his face, and staring directly into his grey eyes that mirrored her own she stayed silent. After a few moments, he turned away clearly realising that she was not going to even attempt to have a conversation with him. Typical she thought, of course he would ignore her without really trying.
Regulus opened his mouth to speak to his niece but just as he was about to he was interrupted by the sound of James's voice.
"Well Merry Christmas everyone, I would like to raise a glass to my wonderful wife Lilypad who made this delicious feast that we have all enjoyed." he paused whilst everyone bare Carina, who thought that this was a ridiculous affair, raised a glass, "And with that I think that it is time for us all to open our presents."
The whole group of them moved to the sitting room. It had been decorated in full Christmas spirit with a large tree in one corner and a multitude of stocking handing in the large fireplace. Almost immediately the room sprung into chaos, with presents being handed around and ripped open like they would vanish if people even waited a moment to open them. Carina observed them all, she thought it strange that none of them seemed to have any manners.
"Carina," Regulus approached her with a gift rapped meticulously in grey rapping paper, "Happy Yule."
"Merci," she replied before opening the gift. It was a potions book that specifically focused on lesser known and therefore more difficult potions recipes. She smiled at her uncle in thanks before handing him her gift. It was a book on the stars and the best places to see each constellation and star.
Carina then opened her other presents. She had received a new bracelet from Fleur, a book on hexes from Draco, some kind of magical goggles from Luna, and a new dress from Narcissa. Just as she was about to leave the room, she was stopped by her father's voice,
"Here, I hope you like it" he said while holding out a gift.
Carina stared at him blankly.
"Are you not going to take it?" he asked hurt evident in his voice.
And again Carina stared at him blankly. By now everyone was watching their interaction in bewilderment, they simply could not understand why she was refusing him. Truth be told, neither did Carina but nonetheless she continued to despite his repeated attempts to give it to her.
Then all of a sudden Carina exploded, "Comment oses-tu ! Tu m'obliges à être ici, tu m'obliges à participer à tes tentatives idiotes de devenir mon père, et maintenant tu souffres que je refuse de les accepter. Eh bien, laisse-moi te dire une chose : tu as peut-être passé ces derniers mois à vouloir me connaître, mais moi, en quinze ans de vie, je n'ai pas passé un seul instant à te connaître. Tu me dégoûtes et mon seul espoir est que tu le réalises enfin et que tu l'acceptes. Je ne peux que rêver du jour où je pourrai retourner à Grimmauld Place et en France, et ne plus jamais avoir à te revoir." (How dare you! You force me to be here, you force me to take part in your idiotic attempts at being my father, and now you are hurt whe I do not want to accept them. Well let me tell you something, you may have spent the last few months wishing to know me, but I have not spent any time in my 15 years of life wishing to know you. You disgust me and my only hope is that you may finally realise that and come to terms with it. I can only dream for the days when I can go back to Grimmauld Place and France and never have to set eyes on you again.")
And with that, Carina went upstairs gathered her belongings and made the way to the Potters' fireplace, she then picked up a handful of green powder and said quietly, "Malfoy Manor."