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acquainting with ally
.✧･ﾟ: ༉‧₊˚✧
𝕬lcyone Lily Black of Cheryl Cottage, Ottery St Catchpole, was proud to say that she was far from perfectly normal, thank you very much.
To some, it was because she was a witch. Ally Black bled red like every other child, but she had grown up in a world that was strange to many — of talking mirrors and self-tying shoelaces, where the wind passed you by a little more tenderly, and the labyrinth of the gods grew a little less twisted.
Most days, however, she did not feel normal even by magical standards. The only daughter of a famous Auror and an equally-famous mass-murderer, her family's haunted past hung like background radiation behind every ripple she made on the space-time canvas of her life.
Still — pushing her trolley through the crowded King's Cross station on the first of September — Ally looked around the myriad of mystical faces around her, and decided she had learned to like her life well enough. For all the shackles she would never be able to shed, there was her loving godfather, who she was sure had hung the stars in the sky, and another cupboard full of trophies to her name.
"Moony, for the last time, it's fine."
At eleven-and-a-half years, Ally Black was something of a sight to behold — fiery red hair swept behind her ears, eyes as grey as the sky overhead, and glitter smattered across the ugly green sweater her mother had forced her into in case it got cold on the train. Beside her walked a gangly man with hair the colour of spun caramel, streaked grey where the sugar had been burned before its time.
His name was Remus Lupin, although he had a nickname and he somewhat preferred it.
"I know you wanted your mother to see you off to your first-year," he spoke, a pacifying lilt to his voice. "She really is sorry, Pawslette — you know how hectic things can get at the Ministry — "
"Yes, yes, I know," Ally interrupted impatiently, "and I told you, it's fine. Can we go, now?"
She did know. Ariana Black had always been a busy woman, too busy for such trivial things as seeing her daughter off to boarding school. Ally was fine with it, she had spent years learning to be.
Remus sighed. He might have believed her, had he not had to see the sad look in her eyes at every kart race and nursery function Auror Black would not deign to attend. As they approached the barrier that separated platforms nine and ten, he placed a supportive hand on the trolley handle.
