HEDWIG

CHAPTER SEVEN

DELPHINI

Three Years Later

Cecelia Dumbledore had been locked in a cell in a private part of the Azkaban prison for three years when Delphini Riddle - also known as Delphini Diggory - was brought in by Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and the new Minister of Magic, herself, Hermonie Weasley. Cecelia hardly looked up when they passed her cell. Had hardly noticed when anybody entered her part of the prison, at all.

Of course, the birds told her news from the outside, but she knew nothing about what transpired between this woman and the past. She didn't know who birthed her - only that the name, Delphini, sounded familiar in her head. Perhaps she'd known her at school or from Hogsmeade, but her mind was so addled from loneliness, she couldn't recall.

She heard a cell door open and close and the woman's voice, "This isn't over, Potter."

"Well, as I see it, you're the one in the cage," Harry Potter's voice pulled at Cecelia. Only then did she lookup. 

Delphini chuckled. "For now."

Cecelia looked back down when the aurors and Minister passed by her cell again on their way out. Harry always tended to peek in to see her, which he did. He lingered for a fraction of a second and then left her alone again. Cecelia smiled a little.

"Hey!" Delphini called from the next cell when they were gone. "I hear you're a necromancer."

Cecelia said nothing. She got asked that all the time and said nothing to those prisoners, too. But this new one will prove to be too young to give up.

"I'm only curious, you know, as I'm the one who put you here," she said.

Cecelia's blood went cold.

"I mean, not personally, obviously," the young woman said. "I sent that tip to the Ministry. You were incredibly hard to find, you know that? Hid in plain sight. Not even my mother knew anything of you. My father never saw you coming."

Cecelia, again, stayed quiet. Unlike her thoughts, something was tugging at her at the far recesses of her mind. Frightening her. The answer was there, but so fleeting.

Meanwhile, the woman continued. "Did you know the Minister has a peculiar fetish for books?," there was a chink of metal. "She had this one... oh, what was it called?" she pretended to think. "Hmm...that's right, The Nightshade Guide to Necromancy."

The world started to spin. That book used to be in her father's library. She wanted to throw up, but her stomach was empty. Bound to a wall and weak. Cecelia laughed to herself bitterly. What a hero she turned out to be.

Then the woman was there, at her cell door. "There's an interesting chapter in there, about the child of Death. A witch, it said. Born from a great line, and birthed from a snake. Is it true? Was your mother really a snake?" she asked Cecelia, a mocking smile on her face. Cecelia kept her head down. 

She never knew her mother.

"Oh that's right. Dumbledore found you at an orphanage," the woman said, mirroring her own thoughts.

How did this girl know so much she shouldn't know? It upset her. She clinched her fists in the shackles, as the woman continued to torment her through the bars. "But I bet I know something about you that you don't. You see, I grew up in a dark wizards home. They have different fairytales than you. Like one about a great snake. A cursed woman was trapped inside, you see. They say she birthed the great Obscruial's child, but somebody killed it.  They say it was Grindlewald. They say it was the curse. They say Dumbledore stole it."

Cecelia wanted to laugh. Was this girl insinuating she was that child? The last time Grindelwald was even free, she wasn't even alive. But the curse part, she zeroed in on - unable to even process the name Dumbledore. This child knew nothing of the truth. She mocked her with fairytales and rumors.

And then - the name came to her. The woman's name. Delphini. Slowly, Cecelia looked up. The witch was staring at her through the bars, smiling. "My father had a snake once," she said. "Neville Longbottom killed her."

Cecelia finally breathed a laugh. "Nagini, huh? So who is the Obscurial?"

"Your Uncle's brother," Delphini said, watching Cecelia's face twist with pain and confusion.

Cecelia didn't make sense if that. "Aberforth is an obscurial?"

You know, for being a Dumbledore, you're not very bright," Delphini mocked. "Did Albus never mention the other one? Ariel. No, that's not it. Aurelius. Yea."