Blackened Heart |Mattheo Riddle|

Father of the year

"Are you nervous?" Remus asked the young girl who was curled up on the living room sofa, a large book titled 'the dream oracle' clutched between her small hands, a knitted blanket hanging on the edge of her feet, close to dropping to the floor.
"For what?" She mumbled, steel eyes transfixed by the words on the pages, never sparing a glance upwards. Remus smiled to himself, pulling the blanket from the edge and over the girls lap as he sat himself on the other side of the old sofa.

"For your first year at Hogwarts, it's a big change in your life," his words were vaguely reminiscent and the young girls eyes flicked away from her page for a split second to read his features. A longing yet amiable smile graced his lips as his eyes remembered his years at Hogwarts.
"Well, uncle, that depends really," she sighed, placing a small dandelion she had foraged in the field in the middle of her book and closing it gently. She turned her body to face him, her small feet landing unceremoniously on his lap, the blanket falling to the floor. He chuckled and placed his hand over her ankle, not attempting to hazard a guess at what the young girl could be thinking. She was, after all, Sirius' daughter and all his brave and recklessness had surely passed onto her. Remus noticed more and more of him in the young girl the older she got. When Remus didn't reply, merely arching a brow and chuckling slightly the young girl smiled back at him.

"Since you have no guesses I'll just tell you, if you signed me up under the last name Lupin then I'm not nervous, if you signed me up under the name Black then I'm doomed to be outcasted and never make friends because my dad is a murderer and a traitor and they will all think I'm the same way," the girl was always crude in the way she spoke of her father, always leaving a sour feeling in Remus' heart at her distrust of the man.

"Amelie, I won't tolerate you speaking of your father like that, he didn't murder anyone, I know Sirius and I can promise you he didn't kill anyone, furthermore, you're eleven years old, should you really be speaking as though you are a grown adult? You should know nothing of this business," Remus remarked, shaking his head slightly with a furrowed brow. Amelie sighed and tried to retract her feet, unsuccessfully so as Remus kept a grip on her ankle.

"I did not sign you up, Hogwarts extends the offer to every student, they invited you themselves, by your legal name, Black, anyway, if you asked them to address you as a Lupin the sorting hat would just call your bluff on the very first day, I want you to believe me when I tell you that your father is an innocent man Amelie, he had nothing to do with James and Lily's passing or anything else that has been said about him, I don't want you digging around looking for reasons to hate the man when he loves you more than anything in this world," Remus sighed, heart twisting at the hurt and hate swimming in the pools of molten steel staring at the wall of his cottage.

"Uncle, even if you think it inappropriate for me to know so much at my age, it can't be helped when I'm living in this cottage with you alone in a lonely place such as Yorkshire and my entertainment is books and the moving pages of the daily prophet, I know what they have said about my father and I can't believe otherwise, I have never spoken to the man, he is living and breathing and able to talk and yet I cannot speak to him nor see him, you have said many times he isn't a murderer but you can't prove it to me, so I believe what I can and until you prove it to me that he isn't what they say he is then he's not a father to me and he's not a good person either," Amelie was close to tears, the subject being one that has frustrated her since the first day she saw her fathers face moving in the newspaper that Remus had quickly tried to pull from her hands.

"I'm sorry Amelie, I didn't mean for this conversation to upset you, perhaps it's time for you to go bed, we'll be on our way to Diagon Alley in the morning so you should be well rested," Remus smiled, lightly patting the girls leg as she gave him a tight lipped smile and lifted herself off the sofa, placing her book carefully on the walnut coffee table. She spared him one last glance as she made her way to the bottom of the stairs,