𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗼𝘆, sirius black

˗ˋ 09

CHAPTER NINE
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-: sixth year :-

── IN WHICH SHE SETTLES IN

. . .

Marlene had walked Nancy up to the dorm, leaving her with the reminder that all of the other girls were downstairs. It was a comforting thought to know that there were people like that, just down in the common room. 

It was fair to say that Nancy had barely any friends her entire life - ones that were human, anyway. When she was younger, she had been friends with a few of the muggle children in the town Nancy and her mother resided in, but then she got whisked off to the life she loved by Newt. And since then, her best friend had been her forever amazing grandfather, and the multitude of creatures they looked after.

The Scamander girl busied herself with unpacking, putting all of her clothes into the chest of drawers that Marlene had told her was hers. A row of shoes were placed by her trunk at the end of her bed, and a yellow blanket and a couple of more decorative cushions were placed on top of the covers.

It seemed that this had been the girls' dorm for a while, as a number of decorations were on the walls and on top of the other storage chests. And so, Nancy dug down into the bottom of her main suitcase and pulled out a file. Sitting on her pillows and facing the small slips of wall beside the window behind her bed, Nancy began to stick up some photos of her own.

One of them with Newt, the pair of them surrounded by the herd of Mooncalves. Then one of Hippogrifs, the set up of their campsite on a particularily picturesque area - they were deep in the jungle after a reported sighting of a rather dangerous basalisk-like creature. There were many more pictures of animals that joined the wall, and a framed one of her alongside her brother, mother and father was to be placed on her bedside table.

Nancy wasn't even convinced that was her real father. His face wasn't even on the picture, removed by magic. But what seemed to define who he was to her mother was revealed in their pose. Eliza Scamander was holding a baby Nancy in her arms, her brother Theo stood between the legs of the adults, some form of creatures laid on the floor. The man had his arm around Eliza, and his hand on Theo's shoulder. 

But other than that moving picture (which only movement was really Eliza smiling up at the man and Nancy trying to wriggle her way out of her mother's arms towards the animal), Nancy had no idea who her father was. And for that she was rather grateful. She supposed if she did have another father figure in her life, she wouldn't have been able to experience what she had.

The feeling of something scuttling up her neck made Nancy drop the frame, her finger tilting towards it stopping it from hitting the floor at the very last minute. "Thank Paracelsus I can do that." She murmured, flicking her finger upwards and directing the frame down onto bedside table.

With her photo rescued, the Scamander girl moved over to the large mirror above one of the girl's chest of drawers, titling her head just slightly to see the Bowtruckle settling in her hair. "I wondered where you had run off to." It was one that she and Newt had rescued a while before - it had a broken leg and decided rather quickly it liked sitting in Nancy's hair. It was then that her grandfather told her about a few Bowtruckles that he had when he was younger, and so Nancy had happily named the Bowtruckle that Newt favoured - a male very similar to the one with a broken leg (in the sense it favoured human body heat and physical contact) - Pickett.

A content snicker could be heard from the Bowtruckle as it settled in her hair, and Nancy carefully stroked his shell with the back of her thumb nail. Her eyes travelled across her reaction, landing on the small suitcase on her bed. "It would be far too earlier to check in, right?" She mumbled to herself, moving away from the dresser and over to the bed, sitting beside the case. "I don't want to get attached to visiting.. but I should really check in on them soon." 

Her hands made their way over to the gold catches of the case, fingers moving to flick them open, the charm to unlock it about to leave her lips when she froze. Talking could be heard from the stairs, and with a sigh she pulled her hands away. "I shouldn't." She murmured, double checking it was locked before sliding it under her bed. 

The door handle turned, and Nancy grabbed the closest book to her and opened it, eyes scanning over the page and not taking any of the information in.

And that was how Lily Evans, Marlene McKinnon, Dorcas Meadowes and Alice Fortescue found their new roommate. Somehow reading her own grandfather's book upside down, and a very happy Bowtruckle sat in her hair.

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