Circi | 2

TWENTY FOUR

"Secrets"

September 1996, 2 months later

This summer was the toughest one yet. Although, Circi had successfully ran from the manor.

She hated to leave the greenhouse but it was just a building- and she was just a child. Narcissa was particularly reluctant to bring her home when she got off the train but, it seemed, she was acting on the belief of what was best for Draco and what Lucius would want.

Upon returning to the manor, however, they were greeted with a guest. Draco was given a kiss and hug that forced him to tense up by a tall pale women with wild black hair and a deranged look in her eye. It didn't take an idiot to recognise Bellatrix Lestrange, she looked exactly like her headshot.

Their introduction was cold, the way Bellatrix caressed Circi's hair as she spoke about her fondest memories of Serenity unnerved Circi. And the stories- tales of burning students' ties, tossing kids down corridors with a flick of her wrist, murdering friends and family. Not to mention she forced her own sister into hiding and Cissy would never do that.

She felt sick and was glad to be able to shut herself in her bedroom. It was on that first night she determined to leave. While she could not take a trunk, she could take a small bag and determined to take only the essentials. This, of course, included the journal she kept in the greenhouse. So that night, when she was certain everyone was asleep, she dressed up too warm for the weather despite the cold night and crept into the garden.

In the greenhouse, she squatted on the makeshift bed of dirt and shifted her belongings around in her bag. She pushed her homework, textbooks and spare parchment to the back and slid in her journal. Then, she folded up Serenity's old scarf and her own along with her gloves and pushed them against the bottom before lying a pot of ink, two quills and her wand on top of them. There was a weeks worth of socks and underwear along with a spare change of clothes but she was banking on finding someone to help her before running out.

The plan? Use the floo network to get to diagon alley. It was the only place she could think of and she had enough pocket money to afford a night or two at the Leaky Cauldron where she would write a letter to Christian for help.

It was all in motion and she was just leaving the greenhouse when she realised there was a square of light cast over the guarden that hadn't been there before.

Her initial thought was Draco, his room looked over the garden but he would never snitch. Not on her at least. But she soon realised it was the window below his room. The room where Bellatrix was staying.

The woman herself approached the window and waved down at her.

Just that simple motion struck fear in Circi. She would be damned if she failed at her second attempt of running away. And, of course, when she finally reached the kitchen door, it was locked. Bellatrix had locked her out. To anyone else, Bellatrix for example, this may have caused panic; Circi simply ran around the edge of the house and crouched down to knock on the window of the basement where the elves resided during the night.

Soon enough, she was in the house and searching her father's draws in his study for the floo powder.

No one had come to stop her so she assumed Bellatrix simply thought her to be having a gander around the garden during the night and nothing more. She still worked speedily and allowed a triumphant 'aha!' upon finding the power.

And when she stood in the fireplace, fistful of powder held aloft, she didn't care much if anyone heard her because she would soon be gone.

"Diagon Alley!" She called out into the darkness. A flash of green briefly blinded her as the green flames rose up around her but soon she was travelling. Almost like falling down a steep, winding tunnel, she landed on the ground of a fireplace dazed and covered in soot. By some stroke of luck, she had landed in the Leaky Cauldron's back room that only ever saw floo travellers.