Nine Lives and Bad Luck

Jones

        Lacerta Jones, had first noticed she was different from others the very first time she had gotten the chance to interact with people her age.

Her mother Greta Jones, was her rock, thin and willowy with a sweeping, gentle grace about her, she had always been Lacerta's rock, or more poetically- or perhaps fittingly- she had been like a willow tree always standing near offering shade and the calming melody of the breeze through leaves.  A place of shelter from the raging of the world. And whether she acknowledged it or not, Lacerta had used that calm to soothe the itch that had begun when she was still too young to remember a time without it, or if there ever had been such a time.

She quickly realized how much she relied on that sanctuary upon her mother's death. It had also been the last time she spent much time around the other children around her small hometown.

        It took not even a full five seconds for her to realize that even here, outside of their isolated little village, no one else had what she had taken to calling 'the itch'. For that was what it was, the world raged and screamed at her, it sought to tear her apart; and she wouldn't let it. The itch was to retaliate, to scream back, to scratch, curse, attack, destroy any that took a more active part in the world's general attempts. She never knew what would set it off, but it always came, the madness that overcame her. It only took one glance around the station to see no one else shared the unnameable feeling. That was also how long it had taken to realize school would not be all that she had expected of it.

Sorted into Ravenclaw, she did not at first stand out. She was quiet, pleasant, and always worked hard and did more than just adequate on her work, but to one Albus Dumbledore, he began noticing signs in her he had seen twice before, signs he hoped to never see before. For while every Ravenclaw knew of her, few knew anything about her. She was kind to everyone and had a preference for rich, dark colors with only one exception being the pale blue she always wore in some part of her attire. She always kept herself and her items tidy. She was always willing to help other students, but she would never do the work for them. She lived with her aunt, with an absentee or dead father and a dead mother. No close friends that they could tell.

That was all he had gained after sending several trustworthy students to search for information from the young student. Not even a third year yet and even the fifth year Ravenclaws would occasionally ask for help locating a book or if they needed one suggested. It was an odd circle it felt like he was stuck in, Voldemort still raising terror at every turn and he was still teaching transfiguration and making subtle inquiries and pointing people in the opposite direction from his wrathful control.

Just like when the last dark lord was raising terror and Tom was quietly pretending at Hogwarts.

It was unsettling. Just like the time before that where a dark lord raged outside in the world and Gellert spent nearly every free moment with him, smart, charismatic, and pretending.

      All throughout school Lacerta  would feel the itch, sometimes it would fade, others it would grow devouring her alive until she could no longer prevent herself from reacting outwardly and her fingers would start twitching and her smile grow brittle. She was quick to make her excuses then, once even breaking her arm in order to leave class. Good riddance. For whatever reason Professor Dumbledore never seemed to like or trust her, but the older she got the more cold he became, it led to more often than not her fleeing transfigurations before she did something that would get her in trouble. All the same she passed school with outstandings on all her newts and promptly got out of that gilded cage others took to calling a school.

      The question of what job she could do had pestered her for years now, however. After all, the excuses that worked in school would hardly work as an adult, and what was the socially acceptable way to say sometimes you just want to attack those around you? Kill them even. There was no socially acceptable way and no matter how good she got at pretending the itch never would go away, the world wouldn't change that drastically.

      It was by chance that she stumbled into a dueling arena on 'open fight night' as she left her aunt's house fingers twitching in what would only spell disaster for whoever she met. It took some effort to keep her shaky hand steady enough to write down her information on the entry form, and when she got to the 'stage name' her mind blanked of everything, but she couldn't leave it blank and she wouldn't leave now. She wrote the first thing that came to mind, the reason for why she was in this position; cold, tired, and unable to properly hold a pen because of the bloodlust that was filling her until the only other thing other than the thirst she could feel was how frustrated and miserable she was. As if the life and happiness was being sucked through her.

      She hurriedly scribbled the single word down and pulled her dark hood up so it covered her wild, dark black hair and kept away the cold that followed her- especially now as she stood in the waiting area around the open air stage, twitching. When her name was called she narrowed her dark eyes, veins of gold winding through it from the single matching ring that encircled her eyes- one of the few traits she shared with her mother was the beautiful spider's web of gold that laced through their eyes. And then slowly the mad smile that came from the other side of her family crept onto her face, no one would be able to recognize her now that the facade had been let completely fall, and that was fine. She stepped into the ring, wand in hand.  A mad cackle escaped as she dodged the first spell and returned two of her own. It wasn't long before they went down.

       From that day on she had found both her home and career and she quickly rose in the ranks, the wildness she had so long contained was for once both admired and feared as it made her spells and movements unpredictable and many even noted how the style at times could be seen in some of The Silver King's duels and asked if she had known them. That was what led to her finding out about the End  Circuits and gave what had become a release for her a solid goal to aim for.

She would become a knight and join the Silver Court; for there she would always have a way to sate the itch that had for as long as she could remember tormented her every move. And she would destroy this Silver King.