It was like my mother knew where I was the moment she stepped on the stage, because her eyes immediately found me, her eyes dancing with delight at keeping this secret from me until now while I questioned what on earth my mother could be doing, guest speaking on my first day here.
"Mademoiselles, I would like to introduce to you to one of Beauxbatons proud alumni, Madam Emmeline Chapelle Fountaine. She is the leader of the Universal Witches Foundation as well as being one of those on the board of the American Witches Board of Ethics. This witch comes to us all the way from the United States to speak about the importance of confidence in the wizarding world as young witches," Madam Maxime began, in her rich french. "May I ask that we all welcome our year's first reflection guest, Madam Fountaine." We all clapped politely as my mother thanked my Headmistress in welcome. My friends around me gave me questionable looks, recognizing my mother's last name in relation to my own.
I didn't need to say anything however, as the first sentence my mother decided to announce to the entire school was:
"On top of all that has been mentioned, I would like to add that my most crowning achievement is to be the mother of one of your students here today, my daughter Ava, a new student here this year, " She said with a knowing smile causing girls who had come to know my name in a day look my way, while my friends around me looked from my mother to me, in stark surprise.
"I didn't know your mother was so smart," Marie commented after reflection ended. We were standing outside the patio as other girls milled about, some leaving for the garden, others doing as they pleased for their free time. Marie, Mila and Gisele were the only girls who decided to stay behind as we waited for my mother to finish answering questions from the girls left over in their seats.
"Yes, she is, isn't she," I commented as I turned to watch through the window as my mother went on answering one of her last questions from the leftover crowd.
"Did you know she was coming?" Gisele asked eagerly. She kept turning to look at my mother as if she was inspired, a similar look to what all my old friends from home were like.
I shook my head in answer, but explained how my mother has a habit of turning up when I least expect it.
"She's usually too busy for me to know where she is or what she is doing if I'm honest."
I recognized the sound of my mother's heels as she appeared behind me, quick to give me a kiss on the cheek in hello. She looked overjoyed to have been able to show off for my entire school for over two hours.
"Look at you, mon ange, you already look so beautiful! I assume you've been in the fountain." I placed a hand to my face, not sure what about myself changed since I last saw her as my friends shuffled closer to me, acting only too eager to speak to my mother up close.
"We made sure she joined us for the water fight this year, Madam Fountaine," Gisele started in her pretty french. I could tell just by the look my mother gave my friend that she approved of Gisele very much.
Pretty french girls that dressed and acted how my mother dreams for me to act. How stereotypical of her.
"I am glad to hear it. Though it seems like Ava has yet to learn her manners when it comes to introducing her friends to me..."
That was my cue.
I went through the introductions of my friends to my mother and watched as Marie, tried her best to speak good french, although my mother knew just who she was before the girl could open her mouth.
"Where did you get your inspiration to work in the government, Madam Fountaine?" Marie asked, now more set in her mind than Gisele.
"I had my own ambitions. I just choose to act on them with all my energy. Why, are you interested in my work?" Marie blushed, explaining how she was still unsure about her future though she was interested. Unlike what I was used to seeing when it came to my mother's grace over my friends, Marie did not seem interested in my mother for her beauty or her wealth. Rather, Marie seemed intrigued by the status my mother held. Power stance, that is.
Marie was influenced by ambition and power.
My mother was asking for Marie's planner where she went on to write out her contact information, or rather, her aid's contact information, as she went on to describe what her daily life was like juggling various meetings.
"When you have decided, I suggest you send an owl my way. We could use some more Beauxbatons alumni in MACUSA." My mother's eyes turned to mine and she prompted us to walk together on the grounds to catch up.
With a final goodbye to my friends, my mother and I left the girls and head toward the stone pathways outside.
"I want to hear about your first day, mon ange. What classes have you had? Are your rooms nice? Who is your roommate?"
I couldn't help but feel a growing agitation as my mother continued to pester me on how Beauxbatons was. I kept thinking that she was only being overly excited because of her wish to make me forget Hogwarts. But it was working, as the longer I talked about my classes, the happier I felt, especially when I brought up how horrible I was at fencing.
"Mon ange, you will find that neither your grand'mere nor I were very good at fencing during our days here. You just have to be more confident in order to do well in that class. That is how I did well."
We were walking in the garden now, avoiding other students who kept wanting to stop and talk to my mother. She always gave them pleasant smiles and answered their questions with many details but the moment we leave them, my mother gives me a tired sigh and goes off about one girl or other's wrong choice of red lipstick or how her accent was too thick.
It was like I had never left Newport, being by my mother's side. I felt like she was ruining the beauty that was this school just by listening to her endless critiques.
When we reached the fountain's edge, I watched in surprise as my mother was quick to take off her shoes and sit at the overlay with her feet dangling in the cold water below.
"Come now, mon ange. Merlin knows you need this water as much as I." I did as asked and sat beside her with my legs in the water, discarding the fact that I was wearing tights. My mother took her hat off and let her head roll back to feel the sun on her face.
"All this time in London has made me become so pale. If only your father would let us come to France, life would be easier."
"Couldn't he convince MACUSA to let him switch with the french ambassador?" I asked back in response. My mother shrugged, her eyes still closed.
"Possibly, but your father doesn't want to move here. We have so many new friends now thanks to his hard work and your brother, Damion, is busy working between the ministry and MACUSA. If we moved again, all of their work would go to waste."
I kept quiet as my mother continued to sit out for the sun. Girls were walking slowly around the massive fountain, some standing in the waters further down, splashing one another happily.
"Your father has been promoted on the Hogwarts Board of Trusties," my mother started, gaining my interest. I had completely forgotten that my father was on that board.
"What happened?" I asked in surprise. A knowing smile appeared on her face as she opened her eyes to look my way.
"Let us just say that someone decided to send an owl to Dumbledore informing him that Mr. Malfoy has been paying people like your father to get onto the board. Paid supporters in his pocket are never a good thing, even if it is just for a simple school board." I looked at my mother daftly.
Why would she tattle on a family friend? Especially with my Father's obsession with their family? Reading my mind, my mother went on.
"I did it because I never liked the idea of your father being in someone's pocket. And I knew that with Lucius out of office, that they would want a new parent who was younger and had enough money to benefit the school. Your father, although older than most, is the youngest father on that board and so, he was promoted to Lucius's old seat. A pretty good benefit for our family, don't you think?"
My mother was gleaming at her brilliance while I tried to understand what she was saying.
"But aren't the Malfoy's angry with Father over this?" She shook her head casually in response as she sat up to place her hands in the water.
"Oh no, they would never act like that in front of us. I even received a lovely letter from Narcissa earlier this week over the news to congratulate me. For a woman with such a stone cold exterior, she is rather brilliant, that witch."
"She was watching me weirdly this summer. Did you notice?" I asked, turning back to my mother. She was watching me now, her face holding a small smile.
"But of course, she's heard so much about you."
"And? What does that have to do with anything. I'm sure she's heard of the rest of my siblings through your chatting together.."
"What I mean by she's heard about you, I mean through her son, Draco." At his name, I couldn't hide my grimace as I looked out toward the fountain.
"Oh, mon ange, don't frown like that. You will have wrinkles! Here wash your face in the water." I dodged my mother's free hand as she tired to get me in the water, standing up and wading deeper into the fountain.
"Why on earth would I do that?" My mother gave me a silly look.
"Have you really not heard? This water is gifted with healing properties. It's why all these girls look so nice in comparison to Hogwarts and so on."
I didn't need to be told twice as I ignored my inner warning to keep myself dry and splashed my face with the water. My mother was grinning my way when I peered back up at her.
After drying off, my mother accompanied me back to the palace where she was greeted by my charms professeur, Professeur Beaupré. Giving each other a kiss on the cheek in greeting I watched as the two got reacquainted.
"Your daughter has been a pleasure to have in class already, Emmeline. It's possible she'll have your luck with charms."
"Oh, I don't know about that," my mother responded, giving me a glimmering look which I chose to ignore.
"Will we be seeing more of you soon?"
"Oh but of course. I am honestly quite jealous of you Esmée to be near the fountain for so long. No wonder you look so beautiful."
My mother was jealous and I was all for it as my charm's teacher took the compliment to heart before complimenting my mother on how well she looked.
"Now that you have a daughter here, you should make the trip back here on parents weekend. It starts two Wednesdays from now with one of our dinners."
Naturally my mother was all for this idea and promised both of us to attend. She then turned to give me a final kiss goodbye before heading out with her witch's hat secured back in place with her handbag in arm.
When I raced back to my dorm, I found Marie sitting on her bed, chucking pieces of bread at Oliver who was racing around the room for his new snacks. Mila was with her, watching the cat with humor before seeing me enter.
"Is she gone?" I nodded glumly before skipping around Oliver and jumping on my own bed opposite the girls.
"She'll be back for parents weekend though. I didn't realize that was a thing here." The girls nodded at the knowledge before Marie went on to explain how parents weekend was a big way for Beauxbatons to gain more sponsors from the parent body.
"Well they definitely have my mother as a sponsor. The first thing she did after we left you guys was go to the fountain so she would get a splash of pretty water on her face." The girls did not find this odd at all.
"Oui, most of the parents do that. It's one of this palace's main attractions for a reason, Ava." I crossed my arms defiantly.
"Well I think it's completely stuck up." The girls could do nothing more than laugh at me as Oliver, who did not like being forgotten, jumped up on Marie's bed and proceeded to take the rest of the baguette and run under my bed for safety.
The next few days were spent with me learning my way around the castle while trying to keep in Madam Benoît's good graces. This was a particularly hard thing to do as Jacqueline was greatly enjoying using me to get Benoît frustrated at my lack of ettiequte. In her class I was always at the front of the room and spent many classes, being her example of what not to do for whatever she was teaching.
It was a bit mortifying to say the least so naturally, I wrote all about it to Sam, hoping she would feel my pain.
But to my surprise, her letter back to me was to give me grief at how someone living on a pile of money like I do, has that level of bad posture at all.
Aren't you posh people supposed to waste money on classes about ettiequte or something like that? Sounds like you're not a very good student in that class. Poor you.
But through this classwork, I found a new class to love, and that was ballet.
While I was one of the newest girls to take the class, with no experience, the teacher, Madam Bisset, took me to be a new challenge to test her teaching skills. The witch was older than most of the witches, at this school but she acted like a loving grandmother I didn't know I needed, complimenting me on what I did right and giving me gentle corrections when I was wrong.
Mariana was quick to add that I should appreciate Madam Bisset while I can because the upper level classes had far more stricter teachers who rarely gave a girl a compliment in class. That news made me like Madam Bisset even more.
Every day after classes, while the weather was still warm, the girls and I would sit by the fountain with our feet in the water and work on our homework. The library, I would learn, was rarely used until the weather went icy, and even then, the library was rarely full. This meant that I had more time to sit by the water and be outside in the sun. Before I knew it, my skin was tan and my acne, the one thing I had never been able to get rid of in the past, was starting to disappear.
I had never felt so happy.
As I became more settled into my schedule, the days started to go by faster until suddenly it was Tuesday night, the day before parent's weekend, and I unsure whether to be excited to see my mother or dread her arrival.
Sensing my worry, Marie asked if there was something wrong, which I replied saying I was fine.
"Well, my parents will be coming tomorrow, and they wanted me to introduce them to some of the girls I wished to have over for the Christmas festivals in my home town this year. Would you be interested in doing something like that with Mila and Anna, possibly?"
The thought of Christmas so far away made it easy for me to say yes, knowing my parents were never the type to plan anything over two months in advance. So before bed, my spirits lifted as I drifted off to sleep thinking of the possibility of Christmas in Europe.