First Day

~2nd of September, 1991.~

The next day, Gavin woke up around 10am and decided to skip his usual morning routine. He simply freshened up, wore his uniform, and grabbed a book on ancient runes from the Everhart library, a piece of parchment and a quill, intending to keep himself busy for the rest of the morning.

Because there were no classes for the day, Gavin intended to write a letter to his family at home and study more on ancient runes. He initially wanted to explore the castle with Brandon, but changed his mind, deciding to do it later in the afternoon.

Gavin went down to the common room to settle down there. Once he was there, he saw a few students reading, mostly older students. He mused that the eldest of them were probably studying for their O.W.Ls and N.E.W.Ts, whichever one they were taking.

As he was scanning the common room and looking for a place to sit, his eyes suddenly stopped on an emerald eyed girl reading a book with her eyebrows furrowed. Smiling, he walked up to the chair opposite the girl, and took a look at the book she was reading.

"I see you're interested in Charms." Gavin said as he sat down on the chair and placed his book on the table in front of him.

It took a few moments for Estelle to register that someone was actually talking to her; she put her book down and looked at the person talking to her. Once she saw who it was, she smiled faintly before replying,

"Yeah, I wanted to get a headstart on the first year curriculum so I decided to read ahead. It's all very exciting you know?...Magic."

"Yeah, I agree. Have you learnt any spells yet?" Gavin replied

Estelle didn't answer him immediately. She just smirked and looked at Gavin's book; the book then started levitating slowly until it reached a certain height before vibrating and falling down.

"That's the most I can do currently." She said, looking back at Gavin.

Gavin raised his eyebrows in slight shock. She could actually perform the levitation charm with such ease, nonverbally too. It seemed like she was very talented at magic.

'This girl is really interesting' He thought, looking back at her.

"You're pretty good at the charm. When did you learn it?"

"Shortly before you came down." She replied, confidently.

"That's brilliant!...though if you want, you can do…a lot more." Gavin said, in a mysterious tone.

Confused, Estelle was about to ask what he meant by that but suddenly stopped with her jaw dropping when she saw what happened next.

The book she had just levitated flew up in the air and spun rapidly, before zooming across the common room, dodging people left and right, earning the attention of all the students in the room; it then flew towards the ceiling and did circles in the air, before flying and hovering in front of Gavin. The entire time, Gavin was looking at her and not the book.

Some of the students just went back to reading their books while some chuckled and clapped once they saw who was charming the book. Gavin smiled at their reaction.

Estelle looked at Gavin with sparkles in her eyes. She looked like a kid who was just given their Christmas wish early.

"That was amazing! Can you teach me? Please?" She said excitedly in one breath.

"Yeah I can. Though, not now…I was planning on writing a letter to my family you see." Gavin chuckled.

The duo continued to chat happily, as Gavin wrote the letter to his family back home. Once it was noon, he and Estelle went to the owlery so he could send his letter off.

"Say…can I ask you a question? Just out of curiosity." Gavin said to Estelle as they were walking back from the owlery

"Yeah, shoot." Estelle replied with a smile.

"I don't mean to be weird by asking this, but are you Bellatrix Lestrange's daughter?" Gavin asked, looking at her.

The smile on Estelle's face immediately vanished and she froze and stopped walking. She frowned and started twiddling her fingers.

'Is he going to not want to be friends if I tell him?' Estelle thought as she panicked inwardly.

"N-No." She lied while stuttering, with her head facing down.

Gavin raised his eyebrows.

"Is that a lie?"

Estelle just sighed heavily and stopped twiddling her fingers, her mood taking a complete turn.

She realized that he still spoke to her even after he heard her name back in the great hall so it was unlikely he would marginalize her all of a sudden because of her heritage.

"Yes I lied…Unfortunately, you are correct. I am the forbidden spawn of Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange." She said jeeringly, as she continued to walk.

"Forbidden?" Gavin asked, as he followed suit and resumed walking.

"Yes...well, that was what they always spat at me when I kept visiting them in Azkaban." Estelle replied, her tone laced with slight anger.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Gavin responded sympathetically.

"I don't care about it anymore." Estelle said, though Gavin could clearly see that she was lying because her tone sounded weak.

"Right, so then who raised you?" Gavin said, intending to change the topic.

Estelle brightened up slightly and then answered, "My grandparents did, well, mostly my grandmother seeing as my grandfather wanted nothing to do with me." she said casually.

"Why's that?" Gavin inquired.

"Apparently, he had a grudge against my other grandfather, Cygnus Black (III). A grudge so important that he disliked me and abhorred the thought of my existence." Estelle scoffed.

"Honestly, my family is full of crazy people and it's rather exasperating to talk about, so enough about me. Tell me about your family" She then added, looking at Gavin curiously.

"Well.."

Gavin proceeded to tell her about his family, which was a stark contrast to hers. Estelle listened intently and asked Gavin all sorts of questions, some of which Gavin thought as a bit weird because he thought that some of the things she was asking was normal for a family. It was then he truly realized how woeful her upbringing probably was and sighed at the thought of it.

Soon, the duo reached the great hall, where they rendezvoused with Brandon and Daphne, and proceeded to explore the Hogwarts castle together. They visited the library, quidditch field, shores of the black lake and the trophy room.

When they visited the trophy room, Gavin made yet another discovery once he saw the list of previous Head Boys and Girls; it turned out that his parents were in the same year as James Potter and his mother was the Slytherin Head Girl of their year.

His mother's full name was 'Sophie Marie Rosier' and she was from the house of Rosier, one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Though, this caused Gavin to start to wonder who his mother's parents were. Could she be the daughter of Vinda Rosier? All sorts of questions filled his mind, so he decided to ask Aelia again later.

After the trophy room, they visited the kitchen and staircases. They talked to multiple portraits, some of which were highly eccentric, which annoyed Gavin a bit. The quartet then went back to the great hall for dinner at night time and reclined to the common room, thus ending their adventurous day.