Flora And Fawna [HARRY POTTER]

25

The time has come for you to become competent in the ways of magic. As I understand it you are a gifted student. We shall see about that. If you are to inherit my house then you must earn it. The first monday of the summer. Be at Number Twelve at precisely eight o'clock.

There was no greeting, signature, or anything to tell Rosie who had written to her but she knew. No one else would write her anything like that. Rosie sighed, and put the letter aside. It had come just before she was to get onto the Hogwarts express, in the beak of a Black owl Rosie had named, Hades.

She sent the bird off with a treat, but without a response.

*******

"There are twenty-eight pureblood families in the wizarding world," Walburga dronned on several days later. "To name a few are the Blacks, the Malfoys, and the Lestranges. Because of marriage and such, those three families in particular are very intertwined with one another."

Of course Walburga would insist that Rosie know the names of all twenty-eight pureblood families eventually, and who the current heads of house were. But that moment was not then.

"Over the next three months I will be teaching you all that you will need to function amongst the pureblood families. Somehow you have already begun to win some of them over, as my niece Narcissa hasn't stopped asking me to see you."

Rosie thought Narcissa was probably more interested in using Rosie as cheap labor, but she wasn't willing to say that to Walburga right then.

"And then of course you will be given a chance to choose your electives next term, and we can't have you choosing something horribly scandalous, like Muggle Studies. I should think you spend enough time living with those talking apes and shouldn't want to study them, but I could be wrong."

Rosie had thought coming into her 'pureblood' lessons that she would hold her tongue and make them as painless as possible. She had thought that Walburga would get all her jabs out quickly and make her peace with it. Rosie had been wrong.

"If I could say something," Rosie had no problems interrupting the Pureblood woman's next sentence. In fact, it brought her a great sense of joy. "I have agreed to these lessons under the impression that they were actually going to be informational. However, if you continue to spew your ignorant filth and expect me to sit here and take it, I believe I will go home and study by myself."

In the moments following what Rosie had said, Rosie had the great pleasure of watching Walburga's face go from pale, to red, then to purple as her face went through the corresponding stages of rage. In due time, Walburga's face returned to normal and the woman seemed to calm down enough to speak.

"If you keep that spirit, you will do well in this world," was all she said, which was a great surprise to Rosie. Rosie didn't expect to be commended after she scolded the woman. Especially when she saw how mad it had made Walburga. It seemed the woman was full of surprises.

Their lessons went on.

*******

"You wish to take Arithmancy and Ancient Runes?" Walburga almost sounded relieved by Rosie's choices, as if she had expected Rosie to pick something 'silly' like muggle studies just to spite her.

Rosie didn't even look up from her book, the Blacks had an impressive collection of dark arts tombs, when she answered.

"Yes," her voice was flat because her attention was somewhere else. "You were correct in saying that I live with my sister, and have no reason to study muggles. Divinition seems silly as I have no family history of seeing the future and I have no interest studying magical creatures."