Snake Song - Prelude

Chapter 1: Moments

I grew up with a lot of green

Nice things 'round me

I was safe, I was fine

Grew up with a lot of dreams

Plans who to be

None of them know were mine

Cordelia Prince sat at her vanity watching the flame of a candle sitting in front of her light and unlight, hypnotized by the burning bits of ember coming off the wick.

It was the summer after her first year of formal wizard education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and Cordelia Prince was miserable. While she did live what most would consider a charmed life, coming from a well-respected pure-blood family with money and influence to spare, she has yet to see how those things were a benefit. To her they seemed to be nothing more than a gilded cage.

At this point she was reasonably certain her mother was deliberately trying to drive her irreversibly mad. The woman in question was Yvonne Prince of the Noble house of Prince, a perfect pure-blood witch in every way, well mannered, well dressed, and well connected. Cordelia, being her only daughter, had thus far spent the summer doing nothing but endless hours of torture, or as her mother liked to call it, "preparing her for the duties of a pure-blood witch." Whatever the bloody hell that meant.

This, unfortunately, meant that Cordelia had been subjected to hours upon hours of etiquette lessons, pouring over old pure-blood family lineages, learning proper posture, dancing lessons, how to eat properly, how to speak properly; it was as if her mother was her own personal finishing school and Cordelia was in her own personal nightmare.

She had taken to coming up with any and all excuses she could to escape her mothers iron grip, on one occasion even going as far as hiding in the attic. This worked for all of five minutes until a bogart wormed its way out of an old cupboard. The figure that stood before her in the musty attic sent her running back downstairs and into her room for the rest of the day.

She eventually got desperate enough to start following her father around a bit more, in the name of "quality time." Not that her father seemed to care for that matter. He often barely even noticed her existence. Decimus Prince, much like his wife, embodied what a man of his stature "should" be. He was a stoic man with a commanding presence. He also sat on the board of every important ministry committee that their family name (or money) could bribe his way onto.

Her parents' coldness was not just directed at Cordelia, but at each other as well. Her mother and father seemed to have an unspoken agreement to stay out of each other's way as much as possible. So, if she was with her father, most of the time her mother let her be.

This was a solid plan up until one night, at one of her parents' dinner parties, Cordelia had been told by her mother one too many times to "sit up nicely like a lady." She went to find her father, hoping to ward off her mother. He was having a conversation with an associate of his when she walked up.

"Ah, Decimus, this must be your lovely daughter," the man gestured her way.

"Yes, Cordelia. This is Mr. Bagman." her father said dryly. Cordelia nodded a greeting to Mr. Bagman only for her mother to somehow materialize behind her, clearing her throat. Cordelia internally rolled her eyes.

"Pleasure, to meet you Mr. Bagman," Cordelia said, trying her best not to sound sarcastic.

Mr. Bagman chuckled and turned back to her father, "As I was saying, Decimus, the Ministry is really putting a priority on quidditch this year..." Cordelia had immediately perked up at this. Cordelia could vividly remember the first quidditch game she had attended.