The Heir

Prologue

As recited in Hogwarts: A History, there were a small number of witches and wizards throughout Europe that forgo an education at the prestigious schools of witchcraft and wizardry and instead were taught at home by their parents or tutors. In fact, the number of students in Great Britain who were homeschooled was the lowest throughout Europe, with the numbers each year evening out at around 150 for standard school ages 11-18.

And although Adora Pickering had been quite content, albeit slightly lonely at times, to be homeschooled by her Grandmother throughout her life, her grandmother's age had led her to be slightly wild and Adora's education soon took a slight detour off the Ministry of Magic's recommended guidelines. Although Adora was seen as advanced for her age according to her grades and testing standards, the Ministry of Magic & School Governors had agreed in a stern letter sent on the 18th June that if Merelda Pickering couldn't find an adequate tutor for Adora Pickering then she would have to attend one of the schools of her choosing before the new term started.

Now, Merelda Pickering was a very clever, very stubborn and slightly insane witch who had raised Adora ever since her mother and aunt were killed by a group of Death Eaters when she was barely 6 months old. Adora never knew her father, or her grandfather for that matter, although Merelda was known to go on long-winded rants about that goat-loving moron who had knocked her up after she'd had a few too many Firewhiskey's on an evening. All she knew was that they had met at school and continued seeing each other after they left, but she wanted to see the world and he was happy to work behind a bar and live in his brother's shadow. Merelda had not realised she was pregnant until 4 months after she'd left on her whirlwind world tour and came back to her mum's home at just 18 pregnant and unmarried. She liked to tell Adora that it was not the done thing back then and if she couldn't get the father to marry her then she would be hidden in the house until the baby was born, but being the stubborn mule that she was she refused to go back to the no-good-idiot-bartender that impregnated her and instead had Adora's mother alone. 6 years later she would meet a lovely man named Paelo Pickering who she would marry and have another child with, but he also sadly passed away when Adora was too young to remember him. Pictures of Adora's mother Emily Pickering and her sister Mae Pickering showcased how different their fathers were, with Emily's piercing blue eyes so clearly from her father but her mother's chocolate brown hair and pale, freckled skin. Mae Pickering inherited her father's olive skin and black hair, setting her as an outsider from the family.

Merelda had sat Adora down one evening to tell her of how her two daughters had been mercilessly killed during the terror of You-Know-Who. Mae had always been the dark horse of the family, while her father worked away she looked nothing like a member of the family and a resentment grew between her and her mother starting when she was around 13, but she always held a strong bond with her older sister, who 6 years her senior she saw as a better mother figure. But when Emily had left school and started an internship at the Ministry of Magic, Mae started getting in with the wrong crowd, people who fancied themselves as the new generation of Death Eaters. She would come home for the summer and spend most days locked in her room scribing notes to her much older boyfriend. Emily soon learned that the boy she was seeing was called Evan Rosier, a Slytherin who was recruited by He Who Must Not Be Named straight after he left school. Sneaking into her room one night, Emily looked at the long, furious letters Evan would send Mae and was disgusted at what she saw. He was convincing Mae to drop out of school, what would she need school for when the Dark Lord was waiting? What would completing her Newts mean when the Dark Lord had taken over the world? He handsomely rewarded pure-blooded, female wizards and he was eager to meet Mae, eager for her to help build the new pure-blood generation with his pure-blood soldiers. Mae was 17, barely of age, but she did it anyway, she dropped out.

Emily was worried about her sister, but with her own baby on the way, she couldn't afford to get mixed up in her sister's mess and tried to stay out of it. The few times she saw her sister between her getting pregnant and giving birth, her sister's appearance degraded. Her once vibrant olive skin became sunken in and grey and her glossy, black hair hung ragged down her back, unbrushed and unwashed. When she came to meet her niece, 4 months after she was born, her trembling arms could hardly hold the weight of Adora and when her lips smiled down into her twinkling blue eyes, so like her mother's, her dry lips cracked and split. Living back at home with Merelda after her boyfriend ran away when he discovered she was pregnant, Emily became feverishly worried about her sister. Her health and appearance were alarming but so was the terror in her eyes. Emily grabbed her hand one night before she left to go back to Evan and asked her, is this what you want? Mae broke down into her sister's arms. She was terrified, she didn't want to be a part of this anymore. She told Emily of the horrors that she had witnessed, begged for her protection and Emily obliged. She told Mae that they would go back together to get her things and then would come home, leaving Adora with Merelda. But Evan Rosier wasn't alone in the home he shared with Mae and he ambushed her and Emily with 4 other death eaters as they snuck in to collect her things. They were tortured and killed that night and sent back to their mother where they were left broken and dead on her doorstep.

Adora had asked then, what happened to the murderers, the men and women who had killed her mother and aunt without a second thought and her grandmother scoffed. When He Who Must Not Be Named was at his height of power, people were killed every day. Muggles and wizards alike were found maimed and murdered and the Ministry could hardly count the numbers, they didn't have the time to deal with two witches, especially one who had been with a Death Eater for so many years. Good riddance, they thought. Evan Rosier would be killed by the Auror Mad-Eye Moody not long after he killed Mae and Emily. Around a year after that, You-Know-Who would try to kill the baby Harry Potter and his reign would end. Death Eaters were rounded up, sent to Azkaban or fled and the wizarding world would try and piece their lives back together again.