Ariadne's Thread ⭒ h. potter

Meet the Malfoys

Despite calling Malfoy Manor home for over a year now, Ariadne Black still marveled at the sheer size of the place. She had spent the first ten years of her life in a small but comfortable flat in Muggle London atop the cafe at which her mother had worked. Now, her closet alone was the size of her former bedroom, and Ariadne was certain that she'd never truly get used to the splendor.

Ariadne had come to live with the Malfoy's shortly before her tenth birthday, when her mother passed away. She had not known that she had family at all, though this ignorance was not surprising given her mother's reluctance to talk about her past. Selena Fenwick had only ever told her daughter one thing about her father– that he "was ultimately not the man that she always believed he was," whatever that meant. 

Selena was not forthcoming, to put it lightly, about the Wizarding World, having abandoned it years previously for reasons that Ariadne now feared she may never know. This did not mean that Ariadne had been raised entirely without knowledge of magic. She had always known she was a witch, like one might know that they're a girl or that their favorite color is blue. 

She had not, however, ever seen magic performed with the ease or frequency with which the Malfoy's used it. Ariadne could count on one hand every time that her mother had used magic, each time in the utter privacy of their home and still done quickly and quietly, as one might while doing something that they know they should not.

The casual use of magic was only one of many adjustments that Aria found herself facing when she was taken in by the Malfoy's. Sharing her home with boys was one that she had been particularly anxious about, having been alone with her mother for so long. 

When Narcissa had picked Ariadne up from the muggle police station, looking distinctly out of place in sleek dark green robes, deterring second looks with the haughty expression on her face, she greeted Ariadne with a brief but warm hug and an announcement that they must leave quickly in order to retrieve her son from the train station, as he was returning home for the winter holidays.

"My Draco," Narcissa had begun, pride seeping through her voice, "is the most darling boy you'll ever meet. He's always been an only child, so he must get used to sharing attention, but he has so many friends who absolutely adore him that I'm confident the two of you will get along extraordinarily well. He's in his first year at Hogwarts, which I'm sure your mother told you about, and where you'll be attending next year." 

Ariadne had flinched at the mention of her mother, but pushed the thought out of her mind in favor of nodding her confirmation. Narcissa seemed nice enough, but she was not Aria's mother and Aria was therefore wary of allowing her weaknesses to show.

In fact, Ariadne's mother had told her about Hogwarts, but only very briefly and only in her darker moments (which were thankfully rather rare), when a combination of nostalgia and wine created memories far too painful to bear alone. 

Only then would she regale Aria with tales of her school years: tales of a House called Ravenclaw, of her brave brother Benjy, of yet another lively prank by a fantastic group called the Marauders. Aria had reveled in these stories, in the chance to connect with her mother. Oh, her mother loved her, Ariadne knew that. And she loved her mother. But she did not know her mother, not really, due to the secrets that had unintentionally wedged their way between them.

Ariadne had been so lost in her thoughts that she did not fully hear Narcissa's next words– a warning. Instead she grabbed hold of Narcissa's outstretched elbow rather mindlessly. Ariadne was met with the immediate punishment of the worst bout of nausea she had ever had in her life, even worse than the time that all of the students in her primary school had the flu and class was canceled for a week. Muggles just don't have the same access to healing potions that wizards do, her mother had told her, and time was therefore often their best remedy. Aria thus allowed herself a few moments of dry heaving to recuperate.