Lotus Lestrange and The Power of Memory

Sleepy Snake

Lucius cast a careless glance towards her. "Draco, Lotus, come."

"Isn't Aunt Cissa coming too?" Lotus asked in surprise.

Her Aunt shook her head regretfully. "I have an appointment with St. Mungo's." In response to her niece's look of alarm, she added, "to discuss donations for a new children's wing. But you two will have a lovely time, and remember to behave yourselves." The two kids nodded. Lotus was a bit dissapointed her aunt wasn't coming with them. It wasn't going to be nearly as fun with just Uncle Lucius. Speaking of her uncle, he was currently gesturing impatiently towards the two kids to hurry themselves.

They walked down the elegant staircase to the ground floor. Upon reaching the drawing room, Uncle Lucius scooped out a handful of floo powder and told Draco to come right after him. Draco nodded, and his father stepped into the fireplace. "Knockturn Alley."

Lotus blinked. Surely nothing on her Hogwarts list could be found there, right? Nonetheless, she followed after Draco and uttered the correct words, popping out in a dingy alley beside her relatives.

Knockturn Alley, as it turned out, was small, filthy, dark, and definitley did not have school suplies. After dusting off her dress, Lotus warily followed Uncle Lucius along the alleyway into a creepy looking shop. The sign announced this was Borgin and Burkes.

Upon entering the shop, Draco and Lotus looked around, but while Lotus felt disgust, Draco appeared to be quite interested in the shop's wares. The only thing that interested Lotus was a pretty opal necklace, but before she could touch it, Uncle Lucius rang the shop bell and turned back towards them. "Touch nothing," he snapped. At first, Lotus was rather annoyed, but after reading the sign attached to the necklace, she decided it really was for the best.

"I thought you were going to buy us a present?" Draco asked.

"I said I would buy you a racing broom," Uncle Lucius corrected.

Draco glanced at Lotus, but she wasn't bothered by it, she had never been interested in Quidditch much.

"There's no point to a racing broom if I'm not on the house team," Draco pointed out. "Harry Potter got a Nimbus Two Thousand last year, special permission from Dumbledore so he could play for Gryffindor. He's not even that good, it's just because he's famous... famous for having a stupid scar on his forehead..."

Lotus had been hearing about this all summer, she thought it was horrible, how Harry got all these special privileges and allowances just because he was famous for something he didn't even do. Fortunately, none of the Slytherins fell for Harry's act, and the Slytherin common room was the one place in Hogwarts where Dumbledore couldn't control you.

Uncle Lucius interrupted Draco's rant. "You have told me this at least a dozen times already, and I would remind you that it is not - prudent - to appear less than fond of Harry Potter, not when most of our kind regard him as the hero who made the Dark Lord disappear - ah, Mr. Borgin."

A greasy man tottered out of the back room.

"Mr. Malfoy, what a pleasure to see you again," he smarmed. "Delighted. And young Master Malfoy too - charmed. And a young Miss Malfoy I assume-"

"Miss Lestrange," Uncle Lucius snapped.

"Oh, of course, of course," the man agreed hastily. "How may I be of assistance? I must show you, just in today, and very reasonably priced-"

"I'm not buying today, Mr. Borgin, but selling," Uncle Lucius interrupted.

From there Lotus lost all interest in the conversation. She instead perused the merchandise. Most of it seemed, old, dirty, and ugly, although she did see a really strange cabinet she thought about opening, ( but recalling her uncle's warning and the sign on the necklace, she decided she really shouldn't.) Draco, however, was very interested in an ugly withered hand, and asked his father if he could have it. That caught the shopkeeper's attention.