Alexandra Weasley: Book 4

35

"So that's the kind of person my mum was? Guess I'm lucky I have my parents." Alex muttered to herself as she walked out to see Kichiro.

"Alex!" Hermione seemed to coming back from the grove. "We've been looking for you."

"Yeah, sorry. I, uh, had stuff to think over."

"Come on, you ran out before you had any breakfast, and lunch's nearly over."

"Hermione, wait. I just- stop for a moment." Hermione looked at her but paused.

"What's wrong?"

"I was in the vanishing room. It was showing me memories, I think. Morgana knew about it too."

"That's really cool." Hermione smiled.

"I guess the room's a lot more intuitive than I thought. I didn't ask for it, but I was wondering what she might have been like at our age. And now I know. I'm glad I didn't grow up with her, I don't think I'd be me if I had."

"Don't say that-"

"No, listen. It's true. She was raised by a father who never knew how to love and a mother who died when she was young- who she suspected of being killed by her own father. And when her best friend fell in love with a muggleborn, she thought Andromeda was throwing her life away and pushed her away."

"But you keep forgetting that she changed, Alex. That was when she was at Hogwarts. Sometime after she left she met your dad and she fell in love with him. And she asked Dumbledore for help because maybe she wouldn't have been able to raise you like your parents did. But she did want you to go to a family that would have never have raised you like she was. And if she had gotten to bring you up herself, she never would have taught you to hate muggles."

"What if she would have hated you?"

"Well, why don't you ask her friend? No one knows you better than your best friend, right?"

"I can't." Alex said.

"Why not?"

"Because she left behind the magical world and probably has mail wards to prevent letters from strangers and I think she was in hiding."

"So ask Charlie. Wasn't he friends with her daughter?"

"Right, because that's normal. Charlie, how can I contact your friend's mother? I only ask because she was friends with my biological mother. Oh and by the way, I'm adopted, but let's keep that quiet because mum and dad pretended I was born to them because my biological family, aka my grandfather, is super evil."

"I think you can be more tactful than that." Alex rolled her eyes.

"Did Ced tell you he wrote to me?"

"I was there when you opened the card from Charlie."

"Not Charlie." Hermione furrowed her brows before her eyes widened.

"Oh! Voldemort? What did he say?"

"Somehow I've made him proud of me." Alex scowled.

"How?"

"He found out I went to Malfoy's party and thinks I'm making respectable friends."

"You should stop being friends with Malfoy then. Out of principle."

"You know that's not going to happen."

"Worth a try." Hermione huffed.

At the end of the school day, Alex headed to Snape's office, sticking to her promise. She knocked on the open door and waited for a verbal invitation.
"Happy birthday." He said and she shrugged.

"Weird birthday, actually."

"The letter?"

"And also, did you know Hogwarts walls record you?" She grimaced. "If it ever turns against me it could broadcast everything it knows about me. I would be so screwed."

"What?" He asked.

"Hogwarts literally records everything it sees. I knew it was sentient, I didn't know it could do that. I saw a memory of my biological mother."

"How?" Alex shrugged.

"I don't know. I was going to the vanishing room, the one that provides you with what you need, and I was thinking about her and then there was an illusion of her, a past memory of her with Andromeda."

"Interesting."

"You want to talk about the letter from Voldemort." She observed. "You already read it, I know."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I wrote back and told him to back off and that helped."

"What are the odds that that was all you said?"

"Slim. But I'm not going to say what I wrote word for word. It was explicit and I do actually respect you despite recent events."

"It's not wise to antagonise him." Snape rebuked her.

"He's not wise to antagonise me." She crossed her arm. "Anyways, I am officially sixteen, which means I am one year away from being seventeen."

"Are you looking forward to that?"

"Merlin, yes." She said, ignoring the amusement in his eyes. "I'm doing runes with the sixth years, by the way."

"I heard. Are you enjoying it?"

"Yeah, it's interesting. More challenging than fourth year, but.." she shrugged.

"Still too easy?"

"Not easy, exactly. Just not difficult."

"Well, you're the one refusing to skip years."

"I don't want to leave Kichiro."

"You will have to at some point."

"Yeah, in three years. He'll be almost fully grown by then, and able to look after himself."

"And you'll be that much more attached to him."

"Then I'll steal him. I'll smuggle him out."

"Out of Hogwarts?"

"Yeah, I'll apparate to the edge of the Hogwarts wards in the forest after graduating and since the wards in the forest are somewhat shady, I should be able to just walk past them and into the herds' meadow, and then Kichiro and I'll go back and leave together."

"Or you could simply ask Dumbledore?"

"Right." She scoffed. "Headmaster, can I take a unicorn from the forbidden forest? I've grown attached."

"He might allow it."

"Are you sure you were a Slytherin?" She asked skeptically.