Begotten

The second day was just as disorienting as the first. Moriah had her first flying lesson, which was terrible in the sense that she couldn’t seem to stay on her broom, but fantastic in the way that Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy got into a row that resulted in Malfoy and Potter flying high in the air, Malfoy throwing something called a remembrall with all his might, and Harry catching it just before he crashed into the castle. It was more than impressive.

Afterward, she had Defense Against the Dark Arts which would have been extremely interesting, but Professor Quirrell seemed to be deathly afraid of the creatures he brought in and of the subject itself. Moriah had no idea how he was going to last in this position.

They had a large lunch, followed by History of Magic. If it wasn’t already boring enough, all of the students were full and drowsy after such an excellent meal that most of them sank into a silent stupor—leaning on their desks and drooling on their robes.

Once the first few days had passed, Moriah found herself falling into a comfortable routine, attending her classes and studying when she could. She only really talked to her dorm mates, though she did her best to ignore Pansy’s annoying voice.

On one of the first weekends of the school year, the young blonde decided to take a stroll around the black lake, taking Klaus with her so that he could get exercise and chase some bugs.

It was warm outside but not unbearably so. There was a nice breeze that ruffled the leaves of the forest trees and blew the grass back and forth.

She sat, humming an old song Ms. Drummond played around the orphanage, something about a girl living in a lonely world and love and streetlights. It made her think of the other children who had been there with her.

It wasn’t a terrible place. Ms. Drummond was a very kind lady and the kids weren’t terrible, not that Moriah spent a lot of time with them. She supposed she had always been a little different, but she did have one thing in common with the rest of them, and that was that each and every one wanted to know what had happened to their parents.

Moriah had absolutely no memory of hers, and being that she was simply handed to Ms. Drummond by the police, the caretaker couldn’t even describe them to her.

The first time she had heard anyone mention them was in the wand shop. Mr. Ollivander had said he remembered her father—Grigorey Priel and that he had been a powerful wizard. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but it was more information than the girl had ever gotten before. Her mother was still a complete mystery, though.

The sound of approaching footsteps made Moriah look up, and she was a little surprised to see three familiar Gryffindors. It was Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger. The three had taken to spending time with one another, or so the Slytherin assumed since she always saw them together in the hallways. She didn’t know of Weasley or Granger very well, but she was very curious about the Potter boy.

Moriah watched as they passed her. She briefly made eye contact with Harry and heard Hermione ‘aww’ at Klaus chasing a butterfly, but they continued walking.

The blonde nibbled on her lip then made a split-second decision and got up, jogging after the trio.

“Hey,” she called out, and they stopped and turned. “Can I, um, talk to you for a bit?” She was looking at Harry who raised an eyebrow. Ron looked at her school uniform then made a face like he had just smelled something bad.

“You’re a Slytherin. What do you want with Harry?” The redhead crossed his arms, and Hermione’s eyes darted between him and Moriah.

“I just keep hearing people say your name, and well, I’m new to this world and I’m just curious about your story.”

The raven-haired boy frowned. “What’s your name?”

“Moriah, sorry.”

“Well, Moriah, I can tell you what I know, but honestly, I didn’t even know I was famous until just recently. I didn’t even know I was a wizard! I think pretty much anyone else would be able to fill you in better than I could.”

The girl tried not to smile, feeling an odd sort of comfort hearing Harry say that he was new to all of this as well.

“If you don’t want to tell it, it’s fine, but I wanted to hear your side before asking others, especially the girls in my dorm.”

All of them snickered, though Ron quickly recovered and resumed glaring at the small blonde girl.

“That’s fair. Want to sit?”

She nodded, and the four of them plopped down in the grass by the lake, Klaus quickly bounding over and taking his time sniffing the three Gryffindor students and rubbing up against each of them.

“I’ll tell the story as best I can, but Ron and Hermione may have to help me out. They seem to know it much better than I do. Apparently, there was this really dark and powerful wizard—“

“Not apparently, Harry! It’s fact!”

“Okay, so there was a wizard called Lord Voldemort—“ Ron flinched, “And he came to power and gathered followers, and all of them wanted a purer wizarding world.”

“No muggle-borns or half-bloods,” the redhead interjected.

“But there were also those who fought against him, and somewhere along the way, my parents got wrapped up in it. He singled them out and murdered them.” Moriah tilted her head to the side in interest. Another orphan. “Then he tried to kill me.”

“With The Killing Curse. It’s one of the Unforgivables,” Hermione helpfully added.

“But for some reason, it didn’t work, and instead of killing me, it somehow rebounded and hit Volde—“

“You-Know-Who!”

“Right, and he disappeared. Afterward, I was taken to live with my aunt and uncle.” He rolled his eyes at the last part.

Moriah didn’t know what exactly to say so settled with, “Sorry about your mum and dad. I don’t have parents either.” Harry nodded. “So, did he die, You-Know-Who?”

Ron shrugged and spoke up. “No one really knows. A lot of people think so, but others think he’s just weak and hiding. That’s what my mum and dad think, at least. A lot of his followers our still out and about, though. Some of them got thrown in Azkaban, but others weren’t found guilty.”

Moriah seemed to constantly have a confused frown on her face. She was so tired of having to ask questions. “Azkaban?”

“Yeah, it’s the wizard prison,” the ginger boy explained. He looked to be the most comfortable and familiar with the magical world. “It’s way far out in the ocean and heavily guarded. It’s for really dark wizards, the ones who go really bad.”

Dark blood, Moriah thought again and grimaced.

“Well, thanks for telling me. I was scared to ask anyone in my house. They’re all a bit stuck up and there was no way I was going to ask Professor Snape.”

Hermione suddenly slapped her forehead. “Snape! I have to finish his essay over common poisons!” Without another word, she rushed off toward the castle, the other three watching her as she went.

“Is she always like that?”

The boys nodded. “Big bookworm,” Harry answered.

“A bit of a know-it-all,” Ron said with a roll of his eyes.

“But she is really smart.”

Moriah smiled, petting the cat that was now situated in her lap.

So she had learned about the famous Harry Potter and the Dark Lord, two major historical figures in the wizarding world it seemed. The story was not a happy one, but Moriah better understood all the hype about the boy sitting across from her. She understood why everyone called him what they did: The Boy Who Lived.