"Familiar Beginnings"

Christian moves to rest against his desk, anger and confusion combining with each other to create an ever-lasting pounding in his head and chest. He read the letter again, and again, and again. He knew that this might have happened when Serenity went to Hogwarts- yet, he refused to accept that fact.

"Chris," Irene watches her brother with concerned eyes, "how does she know about Julia?" Christian shook his head and ran his hand over his face.

"Lakita..." he answers with a wondering tone to his voice, "her daughter is in Ren's year, house and dorm. They're practically 'best friends'." Irene's face fell as if that was even more possible.

The blonde approached her brother and rested beside him, her arm wrapped around his shoulder.

"Is she-" the question died on her lips, the answer being obvious yet so incredibly daunting. Christian purses his lips and nods, he tilts his head to rest on his sister's shoulder. The two siblings sat in tense silence as they rested against each other, unsure what to say anymore. "What are you going to do?" She wondered as Christian anxiously played with the parchment in his hands. He sighed, long brunette hair waving under his movement.

"I'm going to tell her the truth."

▪︎~○••○~▪︎

Hogwarts, one day later

Serenity had a mountain of scrambled eggs on top of her toast. The previous night she'd learnt about the enlargement charm and, with a lot of enthusiasm, she spooned a tiny heap of eggs onto her plate and pulled out her wand. Lakita had watched with curiosity as the brunette announced 'engorgio' and yelled out when the plate grew along with the eggs. With a swift wave of her hand, Serenity had reduced the plate back to its original size and kept the excessive amount of eggs.

"This is, maybe, too many eggs." Lakita snickered as she lifted her sausage sandwich to her mouth.

"You think?" She muffled around the mouthful.

Suddenly, an owl's screech caught their attention.

Flying through the delivery window in the top corner of the grand hall, the Rier family owl flies towards Serenity with a letter gripped in its beak. Sticking her hands out, she catches the letter before it reaches the mountain of eggs in front of her.

Lakita watches attentively as Serenity tears through the familiar blue wax seal with it's indented 'ℜ'. The letter itself was a greying piece of parchment, it's top edge jagged with a hurried tear. The writing was undeniably in her father's cursive yet the shaking edge to his letters read aloud a certain nervousness and fear that reflected onto her. As her fingers brushed the rough edges of the old parchment, her hazel eyes dragged lazily over the trembling ink of her own name.

'My dearest Serenity,

I can't express enough how happy we all are to hear from you. Your sister, Merritt, was considerably more so erratic as she heard of your writing; she claimed she could "smell Hogwarts" in her own special way.

We all miss you dearly yet we are so proud that you have settled in well. Congratulations on making Hufflepuff, we knew you would make it!

I'm glad to hear you have made some friends, Juliet sounds like a lovely girl and Cygnus mentioned that Bellatrix and Andromeda are keeping an eye on you for us- they're such sweet girls. Have you made any more friends?'

There was another torn line that broke off the rest of the letter, leaving it unsigned and lacking any of the answers she'd asked for. Dropping the wrinkled piece of parchment beside her, she tears back into the envelope to discover the other half of the letter. It was coloured a lighter bronze than the previous piece, it had been taken from a newer stack of parchment. The top right corner was stamped with the emblem of the Ministry of Magic yet a drop of ink botched the image.

'In regards to your question about Julia Penniman, I do in fact have an answer.

Julia was a̶ ̶c̶l̶o̶s̶e̶ ̶f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶ my girlfriend during my final years at Hogwarts. In fact, for two years after we remained together. I had wanted to marry her and, yet, she could not adhere to our family policy. So we were to split.

We split not too long before she discovered that she was pregnant. I remained close to her and assisted her until she gave birth to two beautiful little girls, one with a head full of dark brunette hair and the other with near-white fuzz sticking up in a static atop her head.

We had no choice for the split was final.

So we split our girls, I took you and she, well, she took your sister.

There is no easy way for me to tell you this, little one,

Julia is your mother.

Love, your father'