Shadows meandered through the room like tendrils of inky blackness, curling against the once-lavish walls. Dust coagulated in every corner of this long abandoned room, giving a faint musk of mildewed wood and waterlogged insulation that clung to the air.
Ruined furniture and dilapidated curtains disavowed any notion of this room merely being a recluse's hide out. This was a graveyard of a once great house. The ruined homestead of the family once most closely connected to the Kaisers of the Prussian Empire and ultimately the lineage of the Holy Roman Empire's royalty.
And, amidst the rancid decay and entropy, a soft pop shattered the silence; a silence that clung, like the dust in the corners, to the very bones of the house. Delicate footsteps and authoritative stomps echoed across rotten floorboards as croaking groans wheezed from the surrounding structure. Time stretched into infinity, the suffocating quiet pressing back, yet failing, as a pale, sinewy hand crept around a cracked doorway.
Spiky white hair, unkempt, flopped out from around the corner as opalescent eyes pierced the darkness that encapsulated this once-great chamber. The man crept slowly forward, while a silver-haired woman inched closer to him, her eyes scanning the room with a squeamishness earned only from long periods of fleeing danger.
"Mein love, I am afraid that this safehouse has too fallen. Long ago..." The man crooned softly, his tone almost despondent amidst her near-feverish scanning.
"I-i did not truly expect this to be safe. Not since he entered into conflict with you." She murmured, dust flicking down from the ceiling as moonlight dappled the room.
"Dumbledore… Yes. We must, however, find somewhere to keep our beautiful little snowflake, or she will be killed." A sharpness leaked into his voice as they stepped into the open room, the couple inspecting the state of their property.
"Then we should hand her to your most loyal, most faithful." The man rounded on his wife, her lilac gaze piercing his opal-accented irises.
"It is too dangerous! What if he finds her!?" His voice echoed oppressively through the room. The once-floating motes of dust exploded from him, a silver-red haze leaking around his body.
She wasn't taking his tone, however. An aura soon projected from her as well; a black and purple pulse of magic that set the air sizzling with energy. "Enough! We have run out of time. We need to keep her safe. Delaying any further will only put her in danger."
He blinked several times, stricken by her tone. His magic receded as emptiness flitted across his expression, his gaze lingering in the middle distance. Both assumed an almost despotic bearing, their body language radiating authority and menace; the moonlight doing very little to illuminate the shadows that appeared from within their souls.
"Very well. Solaris, our little girl, will stay with the Rosiers." Silence clambered back into the chamber finally, their stillness allowing it victory.
"We will have to keep her away from the world for a long time..."
He nodded at his wife's words.
"We... It is not fair for her to grow lonely and in a world that despises us so viciously." Her voice cracked as she stepped forwards into the embrace of her husband.
"Then, she shall not. Sealed will she be, until fifty years have passed... By which time, the memory of us will most likely have faded into the annals of history." Quiet sobs racked through his wife's body as her noble bearing crumbled beneath the weight of the choice they had just made for their lovely daughter. For a time they simply stood in the ruins of his family's past manor, this building itself struck from the annals of history, much like they were about to be...
Two days later, after securing their daughter from a prejudiced world, Grindelwald, Solaris's father, fought Dumbledore after he had slaughtered his wife in cold blood. The battle would go down in history as one of the most dangerous duels of modern times... A battle that unfortunately tipped in Dumbledore's favour, the Elder Wand betraying its master, as he was pummelled to the ground... The last words of the war being an eerie request for Dumbledore to kill him, or he would regret it.
...
Rosier Estate, 1990 August 7th
Galatea Rosier sat in her kitchen munching on some scones her house elf, Bippy, had just cooked. Sitting with a lady's posture and the high-collared clothes to match it, she was the very vision of Pureblood nobility. The only mismatching element of her appearance was the rosy blush that suffused her cheeks as she read the latest article from Witch Weekly.
"Oh my...!" A soft giggle escaped her lips as she flipped the page over, her eyes widening as her mouth opened in a slight drool. Needless to say, she was enjoying her breakfast.
A soft pop interrupted her morning study of male anatomy however as Bippy landed softly off to the side, rubbing his hands nervously.
"M-Mistress, I-I has somethin to tell..."
A sigh escaped her mouth whilst a slight grimace took over her comely features.
"Yes Bippy, what is it?"
He gulped deeply, his already massive eyes widening further in slight panic.
"W-well, I's be needin to tell Mistress that, Grand Mistress Solaris, be awake..."
Confusion suffused Galatea as she quizzically raised her eyebrow in the direction of her house elf. He was an odd sort of elf, but he never annoyed her or said something needlessly. A tug in her navel made her wince in discomfort as that meant that some family deal was in play and her family's magic could be at risk.
"Go on..." The words drawled from her mouth as her thoughts swirled around who this 'Solaris' could be.
"I- I's be bringing, Grand Mistress, to you?" The Rosier Matriarch nodded as Bippy left, her eyebrows tipping downwards into a frown as her countenance turned dark and gloomy.
Family deals were dangerous and many times deadly. Usually they were only drawn between two houses when one is in need of a great request and needs assurances that whatever help that would happen would do so in a beneficial manner. The Rosier family had once asked the Black family for a similar family deal, where they would be protected from the Vikings many hundreds of years ago... Ever since Rosier had been a vassal of sorts to the Black Family, though it was never formalised. A sigh once more escaped her lips as she attempted to surf through her meagre political knowledge to grasp the name Solaris... She failed after many minutes of recollection, slowly growing weary and concerned at the lack of knowledge regarding this deal and woman.
With another pop two figures landed in the kitchen. One was the familiar sight of Bippy in his butler attire and large floppy ears, the other utterly unfamiliar. Undoubtedly, this was Solaris. She was young, around ten years of age, perhaps eleven... Her hair was a pale silver-white with flecks of darker colours closer to the scalp. Irises of lilac and lavender peered back at the noble lady of house Rosier, 'evaluating eyes those were', she noted coolly. The young woman's posture was refined, as if she had been training in etiquette since a babe and raised upon a platinum spoon of wealth. Her features matched her body language also, her features soft and refined, vaguely womanly though still underdeveloped... She didn't match any current House heir or child that Galatea could remember...
"Ahum, I assume you are this Solaris that Bippy has mentioned?"
The girl blinked a few times quickly, her head turning to take in her surroundings before she answered.
"We are Solaris and Lunaris, who are you?"
"We...?" She paused for a moment, "Mmm, I am Galatea Rosier, Lady of house Rosier and the current Matriarch."
The young Solaris or Lunaris, whichever she was, smiled a little at the confusion present upon her face, a smug know-it-all expression that was familiar to her in an odd fashion.
"Lunaris says that you look rather cool with your dress... I think it looks rather uncomfortable though."
She didn't know what to say to that statement. It was as if the little tyke believed that there were two people in her mind, a possibility if one was mentally challenged sure, but for a little girl to suffer from it... 'Were her parents abusive and lacked the care to take her to St. Mungo's?' She shook her head from the thoughts and decided to ask the poor girl.
"Who am I speaking to? Is it Solaris, or Lunaris...? And, are you different?" The girl just smiled widely, as if she had just gotten away with her biggest prank yet, an expression not too far off what James Potter used to sport in Hogwarts when he pulled off a prank of epic proportions.
"You are speaking to both of us, but if you want you can speak to Lun...?" Galatea only nodded in minor shock.
With the nod came a pulse of magic that crept across the girl's features, her soft feminine form collapsing in upon itself only to be replaced by the broad shoulders and wide chest of a boy at similar age.
"H-hello, nice to meet you miss..."
Shock, trepidation and stark outrage filled her mind all at once as the very vision of the shapeshift drew her away from the realm of possibility and into the realm of improbability. This must of communicated itself to the young, children? Child? What was she to consider them...? She decided to go with children since it seemed there really were two distinct beings wrapped in the one package.
"U-u-ummm, it's good to meet you too?" She almost cursed at herself for the stuttering response. If her mother could see that she would have been flogged for being a bad host and an uncourteous lady.
He chuckled softly before the features all blurred back into Solaris's form, the magic looking not unlike an apparition usage. "Well, now that introductions are out of the way... Could you tell me where my father is?" A tightening of her face was all that was needed for Galatea to know that the young girl was worrying about her family.
"Ahhmmm, perhaps if you tell me your father's name?"
The young girl smacked her hand against her forehead, as if she were being particularly stupid or something such. It was a cute gesture for sure, not that her current posture would allow for her to show such emotion.
"My daddy is named Grindelwald! He and my mother, Livillia, were really powerful!" Galatea sputtered dry phlegm as her eyes expanded to the size of saucers. She had expected Sirius Black or perhaps the name of a Carrow... Not the name of one of the most infamous dark lords in the world.
"H-how!? He was captured fifty years ago!" She winced at the absolutely dejected and horrified expression on the poor girl's face, realising her mistake as soon as she finished her sentence.
"F-fifty...? B-but, mother and daddy said that I'd only be asleep for a little bit of time..." Tears slowly dripped down her cheek before she slumped to the floor, her sobs rebounding off the walls whilst Galatea sat there awkwardly, trying to figure out how she should handle this situation.
'God... Sometimes I wish Lily was still around. She was better with kids than I was.'
...
At the same time, 4 Privet Drive Surrey
"You will never go to that blasted school, FREAK!" The fat walrus of a man boomed out for the entire household to hear.
Harry curled in on himself, using the infested hole-ridden blanket next to his mattress as a replacement for physical security. Where tears would fall for any other child there was instead a determined anger, crackling, hidden, in the deep emerald pools that made his eyes.
Buried under perfectly clean stairs... he lay in a dingy cupboard, his miserable existence punctuated by sparse beatings, scolding and the frigid embrace of loneliness. He dreamed of friends, of love, of connection... All things he'd never received even a fragment of from the Dursleys. Yet those thoughts were getting harder and harder to grasp upon, the desire to end this existence pressing further on his psyche every time his scar burned.
Harry Potter's, the Freak's, life was constant torture and malnourishment. The only thing keeping him from breaking, currently, being the letter that was addressed to him... Inviting him to a wizarding school called Hogwarts. Magic was real! And he promised himself that he would be as powerful as possible, so the Dursleys would never be able to hurt him or say no to him ever again.
He scrunched his blanket in his hands as a small glowing emerald-black aura softly diffused into the air around him. Power smouldered beneath the surface of his skin, the time was coming for him to be free... And the world wouldn't be ready when he was...
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