The rustling of papers could not have been louder. Her small thin hands ran across the papers and her quill scratched out wrong answers.

She let out a breathy sigh and leaned back in her chair, looking at the starry ceiling that she was growing ever so fond of.

She could understand why Dumbledore saw the weather as so soothing.

She recalled her first time in the old headmaster's office.

She was far too nervous for it to be real.

She didn't remember what she'd done to be sent there, but it wasn't something bad, more like a delivery.

Then there was a second, a third, a fourth, and then the fifth.

The fifth changed everything.

The fifth is when Dumbledore realized what had happened. The reason that there was a second, third, and fourth.

He told her seers existed, that she was possibly related to one Morgana Lefay, a healer, a seer, and an animagus.

And a powerful dark witch.

Her mother had been a powerful witch.

Fiercely loyal to the dark lord.

A woman who stared at her daughter every day and wondered why she had to marry a Half-blood to carry her.

A woman who placed a false memory into the mind of the doctors and nurses so that her birth certificate could say 'Pure-blood'.

Amanda Thrip was a powerful and domineering woman who ran her household with an iron fist. She made sure everything was clean, the way she liked it and if anything was wrong then there was punishment.

Alexandria had been playing with one of the newer house-elves when she accidentally bumped and shattered an apparently priceless vase.

The house-elf had taken the blame for breaking the vase.

Alex begged her mother to give the elf a second chance.

But Amanda fired her.

Gave her clothes.

Worse.

Amanda made her daughter give the clothes to the house-elf.

Alex had cried, sobbed even.

She had felt awful for getting the elf in trouble.

Her name what Whimset.

Alex never had a good relationship with her mother.

Not ever.

It was worse after her forced branding.

She'd passed her Apparition test with flying color.

Amanda had taken her hand and led her by Apparition to a dark secluded place.

But they weren't alone.

"Draco?" Alex remembered calling out to her distant cousin.

He'd looked scared when he looked back at her, without answering her.

She'd been lead into the light and met face to face with the Dark Lord.

She'd almost screamed.

But she remained quiet.

She did scream when the wand of the Dark Lord touched her skin and branded her with the snake and skull.

She'd fallen to her knees because it hurt so much and she watched Dracon suffer through getting his.

He did not scream.

She was scolded for it when she and Amanda had returned home.

And she covered it up every day she wasn't home.

Then the battle? Oh god...

Alex shifted as she continued her grading, it was a train of thought that had no stops or breaks.

Better to just ride it out.

Fred had died and she'd leaped at her mother.

Slamming into her abdomen.

And sending both flying down a flight of stairs and into a pillar.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!!"

And she removed her wand from her sleeve, pressed it to her mother's skull, and screamed

"CRUCIO!"

And her mother screamed.

and she yelled the curse again.

"CRUCIO!!"

"CRUCIO!!"

"CRUCIO!!"

And she pressed the wand between her mother's eyes and started to hiss.

"This is for Fred."

And the curse was on her lips.

"Avadra Kadav-"

A body had slammed into her with a yell.

"ALEX NO!!"

Ariana had saved her from using the death curse on her own mother/

And where was Amanda Thrip?

Saint Mungos was safe for her.

Alex only visited at Christmas and Easter.

There was a lot of screaming and yelling on both sides.

"LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO ME ALEXANDRIA!! I'M HIDEOUS!!"

"Mother, please! You look fine! Just let me brush your hair!"

"NO! NO! NO! YOU TURNED ME INTO THIS MESS!"

"Momma please! Just let me fix your hair!"

A vase had slammed against her skull at an Easter visit.

The nurses walked in just as it happened but it was too late.

The vase had broken the skin and she was asked to leave after they healed her wound.

And she did.

Alexandria leaned back in her chair and sighed.

Memories are the worst.

She looked at her desk drawer and shook her head.

No.

She didn't need the mallow.

She just needed answers.