The days moved forward, even if grief did not.
Dora settled into the Black ancestral home like winter sunlight—quiet, slow, and without warmth at first. She was polite during lessons, careful with her posture at meals, and unnervingly silent during the hours of magical instruction.
But beneath it all, Rigel sensed the tension in her—like a bowstring pulled taut, waiting either to snap or to strike.
It was a week before she spoke more than a few words at a time. Another week before she smiled, and even then, only faintly—when Rigel's hair turned sky-blue mid-lesson without him noticing, and he stormed off in a fury, only to return with it bright pink.
"Looks good," she muttered that evening as they sat beside one another in the library, ancient books sprawled between them. "Very dignified."
"Shut up," he muttered, but his cheeks colored slightly, and the air between them felt a little less heavy.
They were both metamorphmagi, and though no adult ever said it aloud, Rigel understood that it meant something. Something rare. Something powerful. Something dangerous.
They studied together from the ancient book Rigel had discovered.Side by side, Rigel and Dora honed their abilities—not just as a pair of children with strange gifts, but as heirs to something older, wilder, and more powerful than either of them had understood.
In time, Rigel learned more about her than words could easily convey.
She had awakened her magic in the midst of tragedy. Her father, Ted Tonks, a kind-eyed man she barely remembered but still carried in her bones, had died in a magical fire—an accident at his workplace that no one could fully explain.
Dora had been four. The first shift came the night after he died—her hair had turned ashen gray and wouldn't change back for weeks.
Ever since that day, she had lived alone with her mother, clinging to what little remained. They had survived together—through whispers in the streets, rejection from both worlds, and the long shadow of a disowned family name.
"Mom never gave up," Dora said one evening, her voice distant as they studied the transformation cycle etched in the margins of the book. "Even when it felt like the world had shut her out. She fought for me… for everything. And when things started to feel okay again, when I thought we might finally be free of all of it—she died."
There was no dramatic pause. No tears. Just a quiet break in her voice, a splinter that cut deeper than any visible wound.
Rigel said nothing. He knew grief's shape now too. He understood what it meant when magic twisted with emotion—when sorrow and power became indistinguishable.
In the weeks that followed, their lessons grew more focused.At first, Dora struggled. Her abilities, once playful and expressive, now flickered and cracked under pressure.
Her hair would shift halfway between colors, her features blur mid-transition. Sometimes she would freeze entirely, pale and shaking, unable to shift at all.
Rigel, too, found the exercises more exhausting than expected. The deeper he reached into himself to control the changes, the more he felt something older tugging back—a different kind of magic. The House's magic. Magic rooted in legacy and intent.
One evening, as they sat cross-legged in the training room, their breath fogging the runed mirror between them, Dora spoke.
"I used to change just to make Mum laugh," she said softly. "I'd give myself cat ears or a lion's mane. She always said it didn't matter what I looked like, as long as I remembered who I was inside."
Rigel didn't know what to say to that. He thought of the ancient mirror, the one in the hall that refused to reflect him when he first arrived. He thought of how, sometimes, he wasn't sure who he was either—not really.
"Maybe you can still do it," he said finally. "Maybe you just have to remember... who you are now."
Dora gave him a long, considering look. Then her hair shimmered—faint at first, like candlelight catching on gold—and then bloomed into soft, silvery curls. Her face brightened just enough to show the ghost of a real smile.
"That's a very Gryffindor thing to say, you know."
Rigel scoffed. "How dare you."
They laughed, and for the first time in weeks, it was real.
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Author's notes.
Please give me power stones.