Chapter 1
It doesn’t come as much of a surprise to her when she is cursed in the back. She has been waiting for nearly seven years to be cursed, hexed, or otherwise harmed with the magic inherent to every witch or wizard to pass through Hogwarts. It is a surprise, however, that she is cursed by a Hufflepuff of all people.
Sure, she was sorted into Slytherin. But where else could she possibly have been sorted when her mother was from the House of Black, and her father was something not entirely human, to begin with. That doesn’t even describe that her grandfather on her mother’s side—the only grandfather she ever knew before Voldemort killed her grandparents in a surprise attack–– was entirely not human, and so her mother was only half-human or half-witch. She has been an outcast for the entirety of her short years, and though she is but seventeen, her heritage now is the least of her secrets.
But a Hufflepuff. She is sure her ancestors––on all sides––would have a bone, or a few, to pick with her about that. She was taught from a very young age all of her family histories. That of the illustrious, dark, and bigoted Noble and Ancient House of Black, the history of her father’s house—though not how he came to be in Great Britain during the twentieth century, and maybe worst and most of all, the legacy of her grandfather’s house. The wizarding world will never know anything more than that she is a half-blood descendant of the House Black, but she is so much more than that.
And she was cursed as in the back by a Hufflepuff fifth-year of all people.
If her parents or even her grandparents were still alive—they’d all chosen to tell Voldemort to stuff it up to his snake-like ass—they would probably berate her for her lack of situational awareness. She knows she was going to, when she could figure out just what happened to her. She is a mutant at best, in the eyes of everyone who had taken care to actually notice the finer details of her physical appearance in her younger years before she could control her metamorphagus abilities bestowed unto her from House Black, and possibly her father’s great lineage. The pointed ears were a dead giveaway, though most of the wixen population accredited that to her inborn gifts, and not her actual physical make-up. Her grandfather, before he left this world, had told her that was untrue; everyone in her immediate family that she knew had pointed ears, delicate but sharp features, and if everything both her father and grandfather had taught her was true—even if they disliked each other immensely—she had more power than even the Dark Lord Voldemort himself, due to her mutant status of not being entirely, nor even mostly, human.
She had learned to hide that before her Hogwarts letter had come. It wasn’t any surprise, though it may have been easier if she hadn’t, been sorted into Slytherin.
But being cursed in the back by a Hufflepuff was surprising, and completely without reason, other than plain prejudice. She was glad then, that she had taken Hermione Granger’s example and had an undetectable extension charm on her bag, though hers was not beaded. It was leather.
It happened as if in slow motion; she’d caught sight of the Hufflepuff student and was about to tell the young girl to hide when a multi-colored beam of light shot out of the young girl’s wand and everything had gone black.
She woke under silver and gold light. The voice that guided her spoke through her magic, the one thing she knew to listen to without reservation.
Drink, and be made anew, it said. Drink and be made whole.
There was a pool of silver and gold water-like substance, and the compulsion to drink it was far greater than any compulsion she had hereto experienced before.
She knew though she thought it a dream, from her grandfather’s tales, that the two trees—one shining silver-white light, the other gold—that these were Telperion and Laurelin, the Two Trees of Valinórë. There could not possibly be any harm to drink from the pool of their sap, especially if it was a dream, and a dream it could only be.
But more than the tales, her magic was overwhelmed with the greetings and baring of souls between herself and the trees.
“Drink of the waters, fair-star,” Telperion coaxed as if a father to his young and thirsty child. And in the dream, the air was warm and comforting, even if her magic felt more alive than it ever had before. She was parched.
“Drink,” Laurelin fairly sang. “Drink and be reborn,