Lost and bound | Mattheo Riddle

Chapter 2: Lightning and Ashes

The journey from the smoking ruin of Black Manor was a blur of rain-slicked cobblestones and the oppressive, woolen silence of grief. Remus Lupin did not take her to St. Mungo's. He did not take her to the Ministry. The trust that had once bound them all was ash on the wind, and the only truth left was the weight of the child in his arms.

He took her to a small, isolated cottage on the edge of a forgotten Welsh moor. It was a place he used for his transformations, warded with every protection charm he knew, smelling of damp earth, woodsmoke, and loneliness. It was not a home fit for a child, but it was a fortress.

The first night, he laid her on a transfigured cot, watching the rise and fall of her small chest. Every whimper, every sigh, jolted him awake from a half-sleep haunted by green light and the eyes of his dead friends. He was a broken man, pieced together with little more than duty and a desperate, aching love for this last piece of them.

He named her Celestia Lupin for the world to see. The name 'Black' was a curse now, synonymous with betrayal. Sirius's name was never spoken aloud in that cottage. It festered in the silence between them, a ghost in the shape of a handsome, laughing man who had, in one night, become a monster.

Celestia grew. She learned to walk on the uneven stone floor, clutching Remus's trouser leg for balance. She learned to talk with his patient, gentle guidance, her first words being "Moon" and "Papa Moony." She did not know they were nicknames born from a friendship that had turned to poison. To her, he was simply Papa.

He taught her what he could. Not with a wand, not at first, but with books. He read her stories of brave knights and clever witches, carefully editing out the parts about dark lords and betrayals. He taught her about the stars through the cottage's single grimy window, pointing out constellations, always skipping the one named Sirius.

But the world outside their fragile sanctuary was not so easily edited.

The first storm came when she was five. A real storm, not a memory. The wind howled around the cottage with the same fury as that night, rattling the windows in their frames. Lightning flashed, illuminating the room in stark, blinding white.

Remus, brewing tea by the fire, turned to find her frozen in the middle of the room. She was not crying. She was statue-still, her small face pale, her eyes wide and unseeing. She was not in the cottage. She was back in the manor, smelling smoke, feeling the tremor of the floor, hearing the ghost of a mother's final, desperate whisper.

"Celestia?"

She didn't respond. A low, terrified whine escaped her lips.

He was at her side in an instant, kneeling, his hands hovering, afraid to startle her. "Look at me, little star. You're here. You're with me."

Another crack of thunder. She flinched violently, a full-body shudder, and her magic raw, untrained, and terrified erupted from her.

It was not a spell. It was a shockwave. The cottage windows didn't just rattle; they shattered inward. The fire in the hearth roared up the chimney in a vortex of sparks. Every book flew from its shelf, pages fluttering like panicked birds.

Remus was thrown back against the wall, the breath knocked from him. He stared, not at the destruction, but at her. She stood in the center of the chaos, her dark hair whipping in a wind of her own making, tiny sparks of lightning dancing at her fingertips. Her eyes were still wide, but now they glowed with a faint, silver light.

The storm outside was nothing compared to the one she held within.

As suddenly as it came, it left her. The energy dissipated. The books thudded to the floor. The wind died. She swayed on her feet, exhausted, and crumpled.

He caught her before she hit the ground, cradling her to his chest. Her small body was trembling, her breathing shallow. He rocked her, humming a tuneless lullaby, his own heart hammering against his ribs.

He had tried to shield her from the past. But the past was not in history books; it was in her blood, in her magic, in the very core of her being. It was a storm she had inherited.

As her breathing evened out into sleep, Remus Lupin made a new vow, colder and harder than the first. He could not just protect her from the world. He would have to arm her for it. He would have to teach her control, to forge that raw, terrified power into a weapon she could wield, so that when the storms of life came again and they would, she would not be a victim swept away.

She would be the lightning itself.

He looked down at her peaceful face, so innocent in sleep, and a chill that had nothing to do with the storm ran through him. The daughter of Sirius Black and Her reckless power. What had they created?