Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
────── 〔✿〕──────
vii. SEVEN
MELORA NEPHELE
────── 〔✿〕──────
WHEN THE BIRTH OF THE LITTLE LESTRANGE WAS REVEALED, THE WORLD COLLECTIVELY HELD ITS BREATH. Descendants of Death Eaters weren't exactly welcomed into the world with open arms anyway, but being the child of perhaps two of the most feared ones to exist wasn't going to help much, either. Needless to say, when little Melora Nephele arrived, there were few people who'd cared to celebrate.
Anyone who regarded the safety of the wizarding world was left dumbfounded to hear of the new Lestrange and her existence. Each of them would have loved to barge into the home and seize the baby, essentially saving her from such a sickening fate. But, to follow up with that idea would have been a deathwish for those people, as - surprising as it may seem - Bellatrix Lestrange was far too shrewd to let anyone to take the baby away.
And that particularly melancholic event had happened precisely eighteen years ago to this very day. The thirteenth of December, way back in 1977. A time where the war was nearing its end, a time where chaos was reaching its final hurdle, yet a time where her parents were still free, and where little Melora Nephele believed she was going to lead a very joyous life.
Her early childhood years had not been the most pleasant, for starters. Rarely, she'd seen her parents around. It had been nearing the end of an elongated wizarding war, and her parents had been doing everything they could to help the Dark Lord triumph. Essentially, from the start, Melora had been a rather independent character, and was simply out to protect herself constantly. That's what she'd grown up to be like - it was how she'd been raised. And she was sure that it was how she'd always be.
For years, even before Melora, the Lestranges had had their house elf, Daize, serving them. She'd been the one to care for the house whilst both Bellatrix and Rodolphus were gone, and she'd been the one to watch over the young Melora most of the time, as well.
So, it was quite challenging to teach Melora in her later life that elves were irrelevant creatures, when the one she'd had had practically raised her.
On any regular day, the younger version of Melora would prove to be an absolute headache for the unfortunate Daize who was left to deal with her. However, the issues that followed her weren't her tantrums or outbursts, but rather what she didn't do. The child literally did nothing throughout the lengthy time periods in which her parents were gone. Perhaps that made the elf's job far more simplistic, but it caused her to worry. It was never what the girl actually did that became a nuisance, like it would be with most children. It was her lack of enthusiasm for anything.
"Miss Lestrange will see her parents soon!" the elf insisted after fifteen minutes of complete silence, the two only staring at each other - the girl in a slightly more menacing way. "They are coming home, Daize knows! They said to Daize they would be back!"
Melora Lestrange, being three, didn't particularly mind. She was old enough to know that she wanted her mother on occasions, because it were natural, of course. But she had been rather independent since birth, if she were to be honest. Support from a house-elf whom she never found herself all too fond of came regularly, but she could mainly cope without the extra efforts. Odd days would come and go - all of them were unwelcome - in which she longed for a motherly figure, but she knew that such a person would not really come from Bellatrix Lestrange.
That being said, whenever Bellatrix had been home with the baby, she wasn't an awful mother. Truthfully, she wasn't a great one either, but she wasn't crazy, lashing out or screaming at her, just because she could, like she did with other people. Well, from whatever Melora remembered, and from what she'd been told, she supposed Bellatrix had had some form of maternal quality before her imprisonment.
At least, to begin with, she'd been concerned for her daughter's well-being when she'd disappear off with the other Death Eaters. Melora's aunt, Narcissa, had mentioned this a few times.
"She'd insisted on me taking you to start with," she'd said once, making Melora smile as she was told another story about her parents. "She wouldn't leave her baby with just an elf in the house, never. And she would really think about it properly, you know. She never really did cast you aside like she did other people. You were someone she'd cared for. And for Bellatrix, that's a lot."
She was someone she'd cared for, and that was all.
And whilst little Melora Nephele knew that her mother had been a cruel and fairly careless woman before her arrest, and she had to wonder what she'd be like now, after being in a cell for so long. Would she care for her? Melora just hoped that the Dark Arts had not consumed her as much as the stories had told her.
