Ursa I
Her days as Ursa were the same as Anna’s.
Dry and boring and sprinkling in with some entertainment.
As January’s bitter winter moved in and the cold began to seep into her very bones, in the mornings Ursa was forced to go to Narcissa or (dru-) her mother for warming charms. The days when they were absent, she entertained herself with staring out the stained glass window, waiting for something mildly entertaining to appear with a book open in her lap.
(Appearing smart was good but appearing genius? Dangerous territory, there.)
The afternoons were spent with her newly-inducted tutors. They had been Bellatrix’s once and it showed on their hard, drawn faces and steely resolve. There were two in total; one she shared with Regulus every other day. The first one, the man she saw every day and was solely hers and hers alone, was a thin man who looked like a gust of wind would knock him over; he had a thin nose and pinched lips that always seemed to be chapped. His pale, green eyes glared through his circular glasses and his hair was more grey than auburn, thinning rapidly upon his square head. He might have been handsome in his youth, she squinted at him behind his back, but that time was long gone.
The woman was the one she and Regulus shared. It was very odd, she mused one day, that they would give a scion of the House Black the same tutor. They had spared no expense on her childhood, for the fourth daughter of the branch family, and certainly given more and many to Regulus as the second son.
Miss Moria, as her mother (dru-?) insisted she called her, was elegant and refined, with her dark brown hair only beginning to grey and dignified crows eyes developing around her eyes. Unlike the man, there were no creaking bones that old age brought and her steps were spry and steady. Where the man - Mister Ovelg - taught her rudimentary Hogwarts classes such as potions or charms, the woman educated them in politics, in etiquette, in family lineage.
The one and only subject that neither the bright, sprightly woman nor the hunch-backed, gruff man taught was astronomy. Whether or not Regulus got the same treatment from his own father, Ursa didn’t know, but every Sunday night when the skies were clear Cygnus taught her the stars. It was the only, regular time that Cygnus spent with her and she kept them as a reluctant treasured memory.
She had, after all, always preferred father figures over mothers.
“Up there is Ursa Major.” He said, completely engrossed in the dark night sky. The man loved his stars, his pride, and could rant on for days. His silver eyes glittered with excitement even though he had covered the same topics with people thrice before her as if he was a child learning them all again. “The great she-bear. That’s who you are named after, Ursa.”
“The big one?” She asked innocently. There was two, after all.
Cygnus hummed. “Yes. Although it never sets below the horizon it does become quite low during the winter months. The Greeks used to say that it was the beautiful maiden Castillo, saved from the god's wrath by the stars and that Ursa Minor was her son, Arcas." He smiled fondly, as one would at a child. "Muggles, foolish but creative.”
“What else did the greeks say?” Ursa inquired, trying to keep the curious tone out of her voice.
He raised an eyebrow at her, looking faintly amused. “Is this a mythology lesson now?”
“‘M curious.” She peered up at the starry sky. Anna had lived in big cities, where pollution had reigned during the night. To see it so clearly was something she had only thought of, never imagine because the disappointment was too much to bear and never seen it because she had kept within the confines of the city.
“You always are.” The corners of her fathers (cyngus) lips quirked. “I’ve seen the missing books from the library, even if your mother doesn’t. I wonder if your sister notices. She must. She fawns over you so much, she couldn’t miss it.”
“I don’t take too many,” Ursa scraped her blunt nails down and up her middle finger in an unconscious motion, the pain dulled by the chill. “And I always bring them back, promise.”
Her father (cyg-) chuckled lowly. Even in the silence of the night, it was hard to hear. He was not a laughing man, sticking to his solemn and sly nature even in fatherhood. “I know. I was like you as a child.” Cygnus’ eyes were glazed over, but there was the pale sheen of laughter over his face. “Quiet, recluse. The only time I stopped was when Alphard dragged me out, forcefully. You would like him, you and Narcissa both.”
Ursa kicked her heels, feeling in-place for once in this life. “Is he like Bella then?”
The only out-going Blacks there was; Bellatrix and Walburga, monsters of their own kind and Sirius, who was wilder than a feral dog. From what she could remember, Alphard had been Sirius’ favourite but there had never been any comment on his character.
“Bellatrix is more like my sister in that regard.” He mused but he didn't look particularly happy. “No, I’d liken him to Lucretia - but you’ve never met her, have you?” Her father sighed, rubbing his hand against his face. “Regardless, back to stargazing, girl. We have a few hours until your mother caws to be about your bedtime and I want to fit in more than two constellations this time.”
And on it went.
Her father was easy to work with as a teacher, flexible where her Olveg wasn’t and relaxed where Moria demanded perfection. If he had gone into the teaching business himself, perhaps he might’ve enjoyed life a bit more.
She studied the history of the Black family first, how they immigrated from Rome as a minor noble family, intermarried with the celts already there and moulded Britain into their personal playground. The numerous tales of various Black ancestors and their mistakes, the wars and the important intermarriages with others such as the extinct Revelli’s and the Prewetts. The nature of their magic - illusion, dark magic and the discreet sorts of rituals that made her blood sing but skin crawl.
From her mother’s feuds, she learnt of the little history behind the Rosiers - described by Moira as “‘desperate foragers’ who made minds quiver and break and shatter upon rocks when they could’ve easily just pried it from them with a few well-placed curses”. Ursa had told her mother about most of her lessons but this one, she kept closely to herself.
Regardless of what she learnt, Ursa found herself soaking it all up like a dry sponge. Learning had been her forte and had always been her greatest pleasure but in this life, being a scholar was like giving a thirsty a man a bucket of sand and a bucket of water and being told to pick.
The library was a gold mine and she, a poor woman with a pickaxe.
*-*
“Ursa’s progressing so quickly.” Druella gushed over her, hands heavy on her shoulders. It was a warning, a silent one, not to move. Ever since that once incident with Sirius, a bowl of soup and a flamingo three weeks ago, Druella had kept her tight to her side during any public engagement.
Walburga’s silver eyes narrowed, but a kind (fake) smile graced her face. “Oh, how wonderful! How very strange though…” she pretended to ponder, daggers in her stare. “No accidental magic yet, Druella?”
The grip on her shoulders tightened.
“Well…” Druella laughed, her hair flipping over her shoulder languidly. “There’s always time, isn’t there, dear?”
“Oh yes.” Walburga agreed quickly, but the seed had already been planted in the group. The other women, older and younger and pregnant and unmarried, turned to each other with unspoken, knowing stares. “Of course, Dru.”
It would be unfair to say that Ursa was a squib. When she was in those early years - Anna, confused but willing - her magic had roiled within her uncontrollably, seething and slipping. Not out of her control, not completely, but enough to choke her with her own emotions. As she aged, as Anna turned and twisted into another girl and settled, so had her magic.
It was there but without a conduit or reason, there was simply no reason that it should show itself.
“Well, Wally,” Druella’s eyes sparkled with the hidden knives that Ursa had seen in her sisters, in Bellatrix and Andromeda and Narcissa. “I’ve heard some nasty tales about your two boys down in that…” She shuddered. “Filthy muggle hovel.”
If the glass in Walburga’s hand could break, it would have.
“I’m sure that’s all they are.” Broke in a woman, her features pointed and pinched; silver hair wrapped around her head like a crown and dark, hollow eyes that tried to rip into your soul. Her voice was hollow of all true persuasion. “Rumours.”
At once, Walburga and Druella turned on the poor woman like cats after a mouse.
Early on, Ursa had tried to interrupt their brawling sessions. Early on, so had everybody else. As it turned out, both of them wanted to scrap it out until the very end, leaving nothing but the other’s bloody carcass behind. It was the one topic that united them - not counting blood purity.
“Of course, Gloria, dear.” Walburga smiled, sickly sweet. No false compassion or rising anger in her eyes. A predator after prey, a cat swatting a mouse, nay, a fly. An annoyance. “All those rumours.”
Druella tittered into her gloved hand. “We all know what it’s like to fall victim to such... vicious things. Perhaps it’s best we not indulge in them ourselves.”
All right, she thought, eyeing the silver woman who stood stoically, this is personal then.
“Ah, my dear sister-in-law says something smart. You know, Gloria, I heard such terrible things myself.” Walburga lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper. “About… Abraxas and a stable-hand-”
Druella let out a dramatic gasp, leaning over Ursa to grasp at Walburga’s arm. “Wally! How uncouth!”
Walburga tittered, flinging Druella’s hand from her velvet robes. “Oh, dear me,” She patted Gloria’s shoulder, who was standing still and wordlessly chastised. “Forgive me, Gloria, I must have gotten carried away. It’s just all those hormones, you know?”
Druella froze, her nails digging into Ursa’s shoulder painfully.
“Another child, Walburga?” Gasped one of the women, young and naive. “Oh, how delightful!”
Another chimed in, heavy with an accent. “Do you think it will be a girl or a boy?”
“Oh, well.” Her heavy gaze cast onto Druella spitefully, their brief truce over. “The House of Black is always in a dire need of boys, don’t you know?”