Chapter 3
The first few weeks of August went by in a blur, an unnecessarily drawn out blur that never seemed to end. Her mother had made sure to pack as much activity into the month as humanly possible and Alya was all but ready to leave for Hogwarts on her own at this point. If that had been her mothers plan all along, touché. Alya was exhausted, she had seen so many people over the past month.
She’d seen her family’s healer for a checkup, her hairdresser for a trim and hair potions, her mother’s jeweler because the woman was obsessed, and a leatherworker who made Alya’s boots and a wand holster. They took a day trip to Paris and Alya was able to get more books and supplies for Hogwarts. She never wanted to see another robe shop again in her life, and was pretty sure she had enough clothes to fit all of the first and second year girls at Hogwarts this year.
She had also attended family dinners with both the Potters and the Blacks. After the death of her grandparents the Potters were just Alya, her parents, James, and her Aunt and Uncle. Their family gatherings were small but boisterous affairs; both her father and uncle being nearly as loud and excitable as James.
At their first meeting after the lunch in Diagon, James wasn’t the only one to be interested in her wand as Alya told the story of her trip to Ollivanders. She noticed her father and uncle share a look but her attention was grabbed by a very exuberant 9 year old James who chattered away most of the night.
The dinners with the Blacks was a much more formal affair, which honestly seemed necessary due to the sheer number of them all. It wasn’t often that everyone of Black blood and their spouses attended dinner, but when they did the number of attendants was in the dozens. Alya was surprised to realize there would be nearly a dozen kids of Black blood at Hogwarts this year, though like her, not all wore the name. There were Blacks, Burkes, Crouchs, Longbottoms, and even a Weasley and it was somewhat of a relief to Alya to realize just how many people she already knew.
A couple weeks before all of the kids were due to leave, most of the family gathered at Black Manor for a going away dinner. Alya always forgot just how many Blacks there actually were until they were gathered infront of her. She liked both her Uncle Arcturus and Orion well enough. They were good men, if not a bit stiff when compare to her own father. They weren’t really her uncles either, but they were the head and heir of a house that she fell under, so it was more of a politeness thing, she reckoned. She didn’t mind it, though she never called Walburga Aunt, she was her first cousin after all. Ties that close don’t need the formality. Or respect.
One of the people Alya was most looking forward to seeing was her Aunt Cassiopeia, her mother’s older sister. Her aunt was one of her favorite people in her entire family. She had never married and never had children; she had told Alya once that it was because she had sworn herself to Magic, like a nun or a priest. Alya had heard some people speculate that her aunt had a mild case of the madness, she’d also heard them speculate that she had some form of the sight. Alya wasn’t sure, but she did recognize something unique about her aunt. Blacks were usually born with black hair but sometimes, like Narcissa, they were born with white hair. Cassiopeia had pure white hair and her gray eyes were more of a bright silver, which Alya was sure just fueled the seer rumors.
When Alya turned seven her family performed one of the traditional family magic rituals to determine what family magic the child has and their inclinations. It was common for children to contain magic from both of their parent’s houses, and sometimes their grandparents' houses, though they usually have a much stronger tie to one over the other.
Alya shocked everyone when the ritual was performed and her magical aura displayed. The gold of Potter and the black of Black swirled around her strong and steady, showing near equal leanings, until both were overtaken by a bright white. The white of Peverell.
Her aunt had been the most thrilled when they found out how strong her ties were to both Black and Peverell, as well as Potter. She had also been the most encouraging about Alya’s potential towards necromancy. No one else wanted to talk about it and Alya knew part of it was for her own safety. No one should know that she was Peverell heiress outside of the family, not until she was much older. She knew how necromancy was seen by a large part of the community, understood there were misconceptions. Regardless, it wasn’t something she could escape as she had been chosen by the magic, she would be a necromancer and Cassiopeia was thrilled to help.
Alya showed her aunt her new wand and told her the story about the trip to Ollivanders, she agreed with Alya that it seemed like fate and was excited to hear about what the wand was made from. Her mother went on another rant about the nerve of Ollivander and her aunt agreed wholeheartedly, saying it was a shame the man was stunting the nation by only offering such limited options on something as critical as a wand.
Once her mother and aunt were thoroughly consumed in their conversation, Alya excused herself to go and find her two second cousins and best friends: Calliope Longbottom and Rosemund Burke; both of whom were going to be first years along with Alya.
Calliope was one day older than Alya and the girls had thrown each other several pity parties about having to wait so long to go to Hogwarts. Rosemund was born in the spring so there was no hope of her ever starting Hogwarts a year earlier. She liked to remind both Alya and Calliope that it just meant they would be in her year instead of Narcissa’s, who was born the spring before Rosemund, and it would appease both girls for a bit.
There wasn’t anything wrong with Narcissa. She was Alya’s first cousin once removed, which was a fairly close tie. There was nothing wrong with Narcissa; they just didn’t really click. It was odd, Narcissa being so close to Alya’s age, but she had always gotten along much better with Bellatrix and Andromeda. Her mother thought maybe them being so close to the same age was the problem but Alya didn’t think so. They just had nothing in common; being left alone in a room with her was awkward after the initial greetings and compliments of the other’s outfit. She could admit that Narcissa was always dressed well.
One of the biggest topics of the night was speculating what house the upcoming first years were going to be sorted into. The votes were split pretty equally between Ravenclaw and Slytherin for both Alya and Rosemund, and leaned unproportionately towards Hufflepuff for Calliope. Aunt Melania had been thrilled at the notion of another Hufflepuff in the family, and Alya was sure that Calliope would be receiving vintage Hufflepuff gear in the post within a fortnight of their sorting.
Alya understood why her aunt was so delighted by the prospect, as most of the Blacks were sorted into Slytherin. All three of the Black sisters were Slytherin, Cissa being a second year, Andy a fourth, and Bella a fifth. Bellamy, Rosemund’s older brother, was a third year Slytherin; while Garland Weasley was a sixth year. Garland was also the first born Weasley to be sorted to Slytherin in a while, Alya had gathered. Calliope’s older brother, Eldridge, was a fifth year Gryffindor; and the Crouch sisters, Honoria and Valeria, were sixth and seventh year Ravenclaws, respectively.
As was custom, dinner had assigned seats with children and parents sitting together. Afterwards though, it was time for socializing and Alya spent nearly the whole evening with her two friends. They were expected to talk to other members of the House of Black, ofcourse, but it was always easier to do so as a team.
When Alya asked her Uncle Orion where Sirius and Regulus had been, their absence quite noticeable, she was informed that they had both fallen ill and Walburga had thought it best if the two stayed home with Kreacher. Alya frowned slightly at that, thinking that she would tell her mother about it and see if they could send the boys something to make them feel better.
Before Alya’s friends could be dragged away by their parents, the three girls made plans to meet up at the station a little early on the 1st so that they could get a compartment together. They embraced in farewell and Alya watched as the two families disappeared into the flames of Black Manor’s grand fireplaces.
Most of the guests had already departed and Alya wondered why her parents were stalling, as they were usually ready for sleep at this time of night. She noticed her parents seated in a sitting room with her Uncle Arctrus and Aunt Melania sat on the sofa across from her parents and her Uncle Orion in the adjacent chair. There was a tea set on the low table in the center of them all, and Alya found her way over to her parent’s sofa, curling up in the corner as she yawned. Her Aunt Melania smiled at her softly and Alya couldn’t help but return a small smile of her own.
She had started to doze off to the low hum of the adults conversation when Cassiopeia entered the room, making her presence known. Alya was slow to register what was happening, but when she did she noticed that all of the adults were staring at her with some sort of amused expression on their face. Her Aunt Cassiopeia stood in front of her, an opaque silver bubble, slightly larger than a quaffle, resting atop her hands.
Alya’s eyes grew wide and she scrambled to a proper sitting position, as her aunt went to place the bubble on Alya’s lap. She had seen bubbles like these before but never received one herself.
“Do you have your wand?” Cassiopeia asked, already knowing the answer, as she had been admiring the thing mere hours ago.
Alya nodded her head, producing the Hawthorn wand, as her aunt beamed at her.
”Very good. Now all you have to do is poke the bubble with the wand.”
Her aunt gestured for her to go on and Alya glanced sideways at her parents, who were both smiling at her encouragingly. Alya lifted her wand and prodded at the shimmering silver bubble ever so gently with the tip. It took barely any pressure at all before the bubble had burst into a million twinkling particles that glittered around them before winking out, one after the other. What was left as a small ball of black fur, laying curled up in her lap.
Alya reached down to tentatively pet the little thing and the instant her fingers made contact with the fur ball it lifted its head, letting out the biggest yawn such a tiny body could muster and displaying the tiniest fangs Alya had ever seen. It was adorable as it stretched its little limbs, quickly becoming curious of the environment around them and attempting to leap from Alya’s lap. She snatched the little beast out of the air with one hand, carefully bringing in the her chest to cradle and it gnawed on her finger with its sharp little teeth. They really hurt.
”A kneazle kitten,” her aunt explained, sounding deservedly pleased with herself. “He’s about two months old right now, so it’ll be quite a while before he’s full grown. I have copies of all of the proper permits so everything’s perfectly legal if anyone tries to question you on it. I even checked and made sure that it’s okay for minors to have them at Hogwarts as long as their parents sign permission and at least one adult is willing to claim responsibility. Your parents signed and I have taken responsibility in case any problem does arise.“ Her aunt grinned down at her.
“I just picked him up earlier today and he’s been sleeping in the bubble ever since, so he probably has a lot of energy right now. I can teach you how to do the bubble later with slightly less glitter involved. It's convenient to know when they’re still so little and it’s dangerous to leave them alone for periods of time. It doesn’t hurt them at all, all the spell does is to magically insure they stay in a natural state of sleep. Basically, it just means nothing will wake them up from their nap until you do. They won’t get hungry or thirsty while they’re in the bubble and will continue to age naturally. The only side effect is that once they wake up from a long nap they tend to have a lot of energy, which makes sense. It’ll be good to know for your first month or so of class, after that he should be pretty good about catching on to your schedule. Kneazles are very smart, so it shouldn’t be a problem for long.“
“What are you gonna name him?“ Her father asked from beside her.
Alya lifted the kitten up from where she’d had him clutched against her chest. He was no bigger than an eight week old cat would be, with fluffy black fur, all over its body, except for one little white patch, right in the middle of its chest. His eyes still had the baby blue hue, but she could swear she saw silver starting to cut through. She thought about it for all of a second, when a name struck her.
“Tybalt…“
Her Uncle Arcturus let out a booming laugh.
“The prince of cats, appropriate enough.”
Her father looked pleased and she wasn’t sure if it was over the name or over her making her exceedingly stoic uncle laugh, since that was a feat unto itself.
Her Aunt Melania produced a large black leather bag that looked much like the mix between a briefcase and a lady's handbag. She could only describe it as a structured leather tote with a large center compartment and large pockets off both sides. Her aunt explained that many of the ladies in her clubs carried similar bags around with them to hold their miniature krup pups. The center compartment acted as a slightly extended basic habitat for the animal inside it. There were minor sound and scent dampeners that allowed the animal to still know what was happening around them, but it wasn’t as overstimulating as they were outside the bag. There was room to set up food and water, a sleep area, and toys, without having to worry about them being disturbed.
It was meant for smaller animals than a full grown kneazle, the bag was extended but the animal still needed to be small enough to enter the bag naturally to be comfortable; though it would be perfect for Tybalt when he was still a kitten. The large pockets on the sides had extending charms on them, so all of her school work, books, and everything else she wanted to carry with her should fit in them no problem. The bag would allow for her to keep Tybalt with her during the day, and Alya threw her arms around both of her aunts in appreciation.
The next two weeks went by much faster, nearly all of Alya’s time being consumed by packing, scanning her school books, and looking after Tybalt. Alya had owl ordered every book on kneazles she could find and discovered a lot of interesting information. Her aunt had been right that it would take a while before Tybalt was full grown, as kneazles apparently grow at a similar rate to common cats. It would take nearly a year and a half before he would be considered the size of a full grown cat, and then he would continue to grow for the next few years. She probably had until the start of third year before anyone realized he wasn’t just a big cat.
Kneazles were also said to be extremely intelligent, which she could already tell. Tybalt had taken to using his box after one go and knew to run into a bush to go if they were in the garden. After a couple of days he seemed to understand that there was a sort of schedule for things like eating and playing outside. Once he realized that Alya was his human he never let her out of his sight. She learned from one of the books that it was another reason that the bubbles were especially handy when transferring kneazle kittens, as the kittens tend to bond rather quickly once separated from their mothers.
Several days after Alya had brought Tybalt home her Aunt Cassiopeia had come over to teach her how to do both an opaque and transparent version of the bubble charm, along with a couple other spells that would be useful to know. Cassiopeia had had her own kneazle, Capalu, for decades and had a good idea of what Alya would need to know as a beginner.
She taught her a couple of basic cleaning and cleansing charms as well as one that could rid an object of the most pungent of odors, one that could banish all of the loose hair and lint off of an item, and also one that would only banish the undesirable bits from the litter box. Food and water were also something that she could summon, but she first needed to know where the food was being summoned from. In this case, she knew that the elves now had a stock of some sort of fish mush in the cold pantry for Tybalt that she could summon from. She also learned that it wasn’t necessary to know the source of the water that you were trying to summon, but it was necessary to focus on the quality of water you wanted. If not there was every chance you could accidentally summon from whatever the closest source is and end up with toilet or swamp water in your glass.
After the practical spells her aunt decided to teach her a couple of fun ones; the first was summoning little balls of colorful light. The lights looked like little balls of heatless fire, stars made up of a multitude of colors. Alya’s lights were slightly dimmer than her aunts and Cassiopeia showed her how she could control how bright and dim the lights got with concentration and magic. Alya tried to concentrate on brightening her own and squinted at the little orbs as nothing seemed to happen for a few seconds.
Just as Tybalt was about to pounce on a lazily passing blue flame, all of the ones Alya had summoned burst into a blinding brightness. She immediately extinguished them all, trying to blink away her momentary blindness. She heard a yeow of discontent from where the small black kitten had jumped/fallen from his pillow beside her.
Her aunt told her it could be a good exercise for learning how to control how much magic she was putting into her castings, and Alya couldn’t help but agree. The next thing was even harder, not that the last had been hard, per se; but now she would have to use a combination of transfiguration and charms. It was a simple transfiguration, as they were merely changing the shape of a piece of paper from flat to a folded bird. The hard part was how small and detailed trasfiguring the bird was for someone who had never transfigured anything. It took her about a dozen sheets of paper before she had one, that while still slightly wonky, would most likely work for her. Next her aunt taught her a simple locomotion charm, which was much easier for Alya to catch on to.
Her wonky bird flew slightly lopsided but Tybalt didn’t seem to mind as he swatted it from the air. Her aunt said it was a good way to pass notes and send messages, but to make sure it wasn’t anything private or that could get her into trouble, as the birds were easy to catch, as Tybalt had just proven.
The last thing Cassiopeia taught her was a simple stinging jinx, which she was informed wasn’t to be used on Tybalt, but could be used liberally on any student who was bothering her or even merely displeasing her.
Her aunt made sure to write everything down for her, from the incantations to the wand movements, to make sure that Alya didn’t forget. She assured her that it was okay if she made some mistakes as all of the spells were harmless and rudimentary, and nothing could go seriously wrong if she messed up a little. Alya was thrilled to be leaving for Hogwarts with a small arsenal of spells and charms already under her belt, all of the ones she had just learned were bound to be useful in the coming days.
Alya spent the last couple of days packing and repacking, as well as practicing the new spells she had learned behind the Potter family wards. She performed the de-linting one probably 10 times a day and was practically professional at it already. Any time she grew bored throughout the day she would practice transfiguring paper birds or summoning balls of light. By the last day of August her birds were soaring smoothly and she had proper control over at least one summoned ball of light. She’d taken to practicing before she went to sleep every night and had quickly decided to master one before trying a dozen at once and she could now change the brightness, size, and color of her summoned flame with a little concentration.
She summoned a small purple light and had the dim orb float lazily around Tybalt’s head before switching to a slightly brighter blue. She saw a small black paw stretch out of its nest to bat the annoyance away. The kitten was curled in the center of a black merino wool blanket that Alya’s mother had ordered especially for him when she read about kneazles love of lanolin and anything wool; and he let out a contented purr as the world went back to darkness around him.
Alya giggled at her little beast, sliding his woolen nest from the center of the bed and onto the pillow beside her own. The orb of dim blue light danced along her canopy as Alya made herself comfortable in her bed, knowing this was the last night she would spend in it for a while.